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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24143815">For Now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxelestia/pseuds/Nyxelestia'>Nyxelestia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Jefecito (AKA the "Gus Wins" AU) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Breaking Bad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU from S4E11 Crawl Space, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF Jesse, Drug Enforcement Agency, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Gus Wins AU, Lies, Manipulation, POV Multiple, Past Abuse, Sort Of, by which author means past Walt &amp; Jesse, eventually</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:49:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24143815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxelestia/pseuds/Nyxelestia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p><i>Gustavo had to fight hard to keep his expression neutral, hiding his triumph as Walt revealed his own ego to Jesse without realizing it.</i><br/><br/><i>“No matter how hard you try to turn him against me, to screw with his head so that he would hate my guts…”</i><br/><br/><i>It might be with a spoon instead of a shovel, but with every word, Walt dug his own grave deeper and deeper.</i><br/><br/><i>“…and he still won’t let you do it.”</i><br/><br/><i>For a moment, Gustavo could’ve sworn that God sided firmly with him, for when the cloud finally passed overhead, the sun lit up the desert and Jesse’s indignant rage almost shone in the golden light reflecting off the sand.</i><br/>  </p>
</blockquote><br/>"Gus Wins" Canon-Divergent AU from Crawl Space. Jesse hesitates outside his door long enough to see Gus' guys kidnap Mr. White off his lawn, and demand to come along. That split-second hesitation changes the world.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(One-sided/unrequited), Gustavo Fring &amp; Jesse Pinkman, Gustavo Fring/Jesse Pinkman, Jesse Pinkman &amp; Walter White</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Jefecito (AKA the "Gus Wins" AU) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. La Luz de Oro</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Showing up to the fandom ten years late with a Starbucks in my usual style: genfic AU that nobody asked for.</p><p>Written in a mad rush and posted without beta or editing. If you spot any typos or errors, please let me know.</p><p>Crossposted to <a href="https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13582315/1/For-Now">FFN</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The last time I asked for your help, you said: I hope you end up buried in a barrel in the Mexican desert.”</p><p>When Mr. White approached him again, Jesse shoved him away. He almost felt bad about…but the leftover bruises from their fight in his living room throbbed in time with Mr. White’s backward stumble.</p><p>Turning sharply on his heel, like he’d seen Gus and Mike do when they were tense, Jesse walked away. Let Mr. White stew for a bit, before he found out he and most of his family would be safe. Let him know what it feels like to have your life in someone else’s hands when they don’t seem to give a damn about you.</p><p>At the safety of his door, he reached for the handle with a trembling hand.</p><p>Then stopped as he realized his hand was trembling. He paused, clenching it into a fist; he didn’t want Brock and Andrea to see him like this.</p><p>Resting his forehead against the cool surface of the front door, Jesse clenched his eyes shut, trying not to cry. Don’t cry, don’t whimper, don’t even breathe-</p><p>That was probably the only reason he heard the crackling, and what sounded like Mr. White choking.</p><p>He jerked back in surprise, freezing when he saw Tyrus standing over Mr. White, a baton of some kind pressed into Mr. White’s gut.</p><p>That choking sound could not be good for a lung cancer patient.</p><p>Another guy, whose face seemed only vaguely familiar, lifted up Mr. White with efficient movements. On a van Jesse hadn’t even noticed, the door slid open and Mr. White vanished into its depths, body seeming to fall backwards as if he were already dead.</p><p>Like Gale’s had.</p><p><i>No</i>, he told himself, even as turned on the spot. <i>You know he’s alive!</i></p><p>Jesse could convince the entire upper echelon of a Mexican drug cartel and their chemists that he knew what the hell he was doing in a meth lab, yet somehow he couldn’t convince himself that Mr. White would be fine.</p><p>Tyrus raised an eyebrow as Jesse strode over to them.</p><p>“I thought Gus and I had a deal!” he started.</p><p>Tyrus rolled his eyes. “You do.”</p><p>Jesse pursed his lips, staring at the van. In the middle of the night, and in the shade of a tree that created a dark spot between two streetlights, the entire vehicle looked more a van-shaped hole in the air than a solid object that could hold a living, writhing, paining body.</p><p>“Where are you taking him?” Jesse demanded.</p><p>Tyrus said nothing.</p><p>But at least he didn’t move. The van stayed dormant behind him, as the other guy slid into the driver’s seat of Mr. White’s rental.</p><p>“Can you at least give me a hint?” Jesse asked. “Or at least tell me what Gus is gonna do?”</p><p>With a silent shrug, Tyrus shook his head and turned away.</p><p>Jesse stood rooted to his lawn, as stuck as the giant trees lining dotting the yards on the street, while the van and the rental car started. The engines ignited with little noise, yet in the quiet of the street they almost deafened him as they drove away, taking Mr. White to god knows where.</p><p>To <i>Gus</i> knows where.</p><p>They had a deal. They had a deal and Gus would keep it, because he needed Jesse.</p><p>…but once upon a time, Mr. White had needed Jesse too.</p><p>And even if Gus avoided it, Jesse knew how good of a liar Gus could be if he needed to. He’d just seen it first hand.</p><p>Grunting in frustration, Jesse yanked his phone out of his pocket, and dialed Gus’ number.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~</p>
</div><p>“Seriously? They put a <i>bag</i> over his head?”</p><p>Gustavo couldn’t help the slight uptick in his smile at the incredulity in Jesse’s voice.</p><p>“Can’t he hear us coming?” Jesse continued. With Gustavo’ gaze focused on the drive forward, he saw only Jesse’s hand in his peripheral vision, tapping out an uneasy rhythm against the old Volvo’s dashboard. Despite this, he could feel the uneasiness with every rustle and jostle from his passenger seat. “Wouldn’t that defeat the point? It’s not like there’s anything out here for him to see-”</p><p>“You.”</p><p>Jesse’s hand — and presumably the rest of him — froze in surprise.</p><p>“He doesn’t know you’re here,” Gustavo continued. “He won’t know you were here. But more importantly, this is a reminder to him. He is at my mercy. He cannot even see what we do not want him to see; his world is contingent upon our whims.”</p><p>Gustavo heard a nervous swallow and the jiggle of a knee, those adroit fingers twitching just outside of the sunlight warping through the windshield.</p><p>“…so it’s, like, an intimidation thing?”</p><p>Tamping down on the satisfied smirk his smile wanted to curl into, Gustavo nodded.</p><p>This wasn’t quite the thrill of watching Jesse show up the cartel’s chemists, but it felt close enough that Gustavo looked forward to this meeting, despite knowing full well the disaster that loomed every time Walt and Jesse got close to each other.</p><p>Though given Tyrus’ report of their scuffle on Jesse’s front lawn the previous night, that potential disaster loomed a little further away than it used to.</p><p>Gustavo had enough faith in Walt’s arrogance to only further push it away…if he did not know Jesse was listening to him in the first place.</p><p>As such, he pulled up and parked behind Walt’s kneeling form. When he cut the engine, the silence of the desert draped over them like a heavy blanket, cut only by the occasional cough from Walt. The two men who’d brought him out here stood in stiff silence, facing outward to scan their surroundings for unpleasant surprises.</p><p>When Gustavo looked at Jesse, he didn’t even have to say anything. Jesse just nodded at him. “Keeping my mouth shut,” he promised. Looking back out at Walt, Jesse cracked open the window to listen to their conversation…then slouched, as if afraid Walt could somehow see out the back of his head and through the heavy hood currently wrapped around it.</p><p>After releasing their seat-belts, Gustavo spared a moment to stare in amazement between Jesse and Walt.</p><p>Just three days ago, Jesse had stood proud in the center of the cartel’s attention as he cooked purer meth than anyone south of the border ever dreamed possible — unbowed under their scrutiny, and unwavering in the violence that followed.</p><p>How could Walt, kneeling and bound and blindfolded under the open sun, reduce Jesse to cowering in the passenger seat?</p><p>Well, it mattered little, now. For all the sympathy Gustavo could in Jesse’s eyes as he looked upon his old mentor’s vulnerability and destitution, he still clenched his jaw in angry resolution.</p><p>He opened his own door quietly, stepping out into the sweltering heat in silence.</p><p>Then he slammed the driver’s side door shut; Jesse and Walt flinched in unison, though Jesse didn’t seem to realize this, not tearing his gaze away from ‘Mr. White’ for even a moment.</p><p>Gustavo stood for a moment, resting his hand on the hot metal hood of his car as he let the echoes die down. Only once the silence permeated the triangle between the three cars did Gustavo start walking around his vehicle and towards Walt. He let the men hear every deliberate step he crunched into the rocky land.</p><p>Walt writhed as Gustavo approached. How much came from leftover shocks, and how much came from Gustavo’ footsteps?</p><p>Did it even matter?</p><p>He came around the kneeling man, until he stood directly in front of Walt — with Jesse in the passenger seat directly behind him. Gustavo glanced at Jesse over Walt’s head for a silent moment, before reaching out and yanking the hood off.</p><p>His bald head and glasses glinting under the sun, Walt clenched his eyes shut at the sudden brightness, cringing into himself as he tried to adjust to the light.</p><p>Gustavo waited until Walt looked up at him.</p><p>“You. Are. Done. <i>Fired!</i>” He enunciated every word, wanting to make sure both Walt and Jesse heard him. “Do not show your face at the laundry again. Do not go near Pinkman ever again.”</p><p>Jesse flinched with every other word, and Walt curled over his knees. “Are you listening to me?” Gustavo demanded of Walt.</p><p>In slow, jerking movements, Walt straightened, squinting up at Gustavo.</p><p>“…or else you’ll do what?”</p><p>Even in the quiet of the desert, Gustavo could barely hear the man. The words didn’t seem to penetrate for a moment, the notion so preposterous.</p><p>“What did you say?”</p><p>“‘Stay away from Pinkman’,” Walt quoted, voice carrying through the still air. “Or else you’ll do what?”</p><p>Hidden in the car behind Walt, Jesse slowly straightened, too. Confusion unfurled across his countenance.</p><p>“Kill me?” Walt demanded, shaking his head in slow arrogance. “If you could kill me, I’d already be dead.”</p><p>A cloud passed overhead and the desert dimmed around them all, as if Walt managed to draw literal shadows to him as easily as he did metaphorical darkness.</p><p>“But you can’t,” Walt continued, more hubris saturating his roughshod voice with every word. “You can’t kill me, because <i>Jesse</i> wouldn’t cook for you if you did.”</p><p>Walt said the boy’s name with the surety of a master speaking of a well-trained dog.</p><p>“That’s it, isn’t it?”</p><p>In the passenger seat behind Walt, Jesse sat upright, lips curling back and bearing his teeth — even as Walt curled into a cough between them.</p><p>Gustavo had to fight hard to keep his expression neutral, hiding his triumph as Walt revealed his own ego to Jesse without realizing it.</p><p>“No matter how hard you try to turn him against me, to screw with his head so that he would hate my guts…”</p><p>It might be with a spoon instead of a shovel, but with every word, Walt dug his own grave deeper and deeper.</p><p>“…and he still won’t let you do it.”</p><p>Gustavo hadn’t prayed since the day he lost Maximino, and apart from charity functions for his public image, he hadn’t set foot inside a church since he first came to this country all those years ago.</p><p>Yet for a moment, he could’ve sworn that God sided firmly with him, for when the cloud finally passed overhead, the sun lit up the desert and Jesse’s indignant rage almost shone in the golden light reflecting off the sand.</p><p><i>For now,</i> Gustavo almost said.</p><p>But that was the last thing he needed Jesse to hear from him, no matter how much the rest of them knew Jesse would come around in time.</p><p>Jesse had come leaps and bounds away from the useless junkie Gustavo had first judged him as, but he still had a long way to go…and he had kicked his latest drug habit all too recently.</p><p>That craving for a semblance of power and security still lurked in Jesse’s veins. Gustavo could substitute and provide most of it, giving Jesse prominence in his burgeoning empire…but not all of it.</p><p>Walt could provide the rest for him, as long as Gustavo could direct their conversation in the right direction.</p><p>“You weren’t wrong,” he said down to the top of Walt’s bald head. Gustavo want to see how Jesse took his words, but he didn’t dare look up and let Jesse realize Gustavo was talking to <i>him</i> as much as Walt. “Pinkman is loyal. Wasn’t that what you praised the most about him? That ‘he does what you say’?”</p><p>Perhaps that would be a little too blatant. He had no doubt that if Walt had known Jesse were there, he could have immediately have turned around such an obvious misconstruction.</p><p>But Walt didn’t know, and Jesse didn’t care.</p><p>“Jesse’s loyal,” Walt agreed. “He’s loyal and he’s smart, which I saw when no one else did. You’re the one who called him nothing but a junkie! Your opinion of him was so low, you refused to work with me just because he showed up.”</p><p>Deep in his head, Gustavo wanted to wince. Of course Walt couldn’t make this easy.</p><p>Still, Jesse already knew what Gustavo had thought of him — and that Gustavo’s opinion of him had changed.</p><p>“I did,” he conceded. Had Walt ever conceded a point or admitted wrong-doing to Jesse? No matter; let Jesse see that Gustavo respected him at least this much. “Believe me, it has been a very long time since I’ve been proven so mistaken about someone. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so glad to be this wrong.” He narrowed his eyes at Walt. “But I was right about you. You are not a careful man. I only failed to notice because it was never you who paid the price. It was everyone else around you…Pinkman most of all.”</p><p>He shifted his weight, as if adjusting in the New Mexico sun — and letting him glance unobtrusively at the vehicle behind Walt.</p><p>Though that effort might not have been necessary, as Jesse’s gaze remained locked on Walt.</p><p>“‘Pinkman’,” Walt ground out with a condescending roll of his eyes. “Jesse wouldn’t be the cook you need if it weren’t for me. <i>I</i> was the one who pulled him out of that flop house after you condemned and dismissed him as a junkie; he wouldn’t be <i>alive</i> if it weren’t for me!”</p><p>“True,” Gustavo granted. “For the heroin. But after that? You are the one that made him kill Gale-”</p><p>“And <i>you’re</i> the one that forced our hand!”</p><p>“-and then abandoned him,” Gustavo continued. “You let his grief and pain and trauma fester, because this time he could still cook. He could still, as you put it, <i>do what you say</i>. You don’t care if his addictions destroy <i>him</i>, as long as they don’t destroy your lab assistant.”</p><p>Gustavo crouched down, the movement bringing him closer to Walt while giving him another glimpse behind the man. In the window of the car, Jesse trembled — but remained upright in his seat.</p><p>“He is a fine cook and finer young man that you’ve twisted around your every whim and word,” Gustavo said, not lowering his voice despite his new proximity to Walt. “I’m almost impressed by how much you’ve managed to crush him to suit your needs.”</p><p>“How much <i>I</i> crushed him?” Walt demanded, rearing up as if he wanted to rip Gustavo’s throat out with his teeth. Were he a few decades younger, he might have even tried.</p><p>But in his fifties and only a few months out of chemotherapy, Walt fell back down, tilting sideways and almost falling over. He scraped out a balance despite his hands’ bondage behind his back, and glared up at Gustavo with hatred almost as naked as Hector’s.</p><p>“Jesse was cooking drips and drabbles of cloudy meth out of pseudoephedrine when I first found him!” Walt yelled. “He didn’t even know anything else was possible until I showed him.”</p><p>Behind him, Jesse’s trembling slowed to a determined stillness, not dissimilar to what Gus had seen down in Don Eladio’s laboratory.</p><p>“He’d be dead by now if it weren’t for me,” Walt repeated. “And even if he weren’t, even if he somehow managed to survive the pathetic thugs and all the drugs, he wouldn’t be half the man you care about without me. Jesse would be <i>nothing</i> without me!”</p><p>“Yo, <i>what?!</i>”</p><p>At Jesse’s outburst, Walt’s eyes flew as wide open as physically possible in the sun and the sand. He whirled around to see the boy slam out of Gustavo’s car.</p><p>With their focuses locked on each other, Gustavo allowed himself a quick, smug smile. He could see his two men smirk with their own amusement, even as they remained otherwise professional while monitoring their surroundings.</p><p>Still savoring the vengeance decades in the making, this little victory made for a delicious dessert.</p><p>“You think <i>I’d</i> be nothing without <i>you</i>?” Jesse snarled.</p><p>Gustavo rose to his feet as Jesse took his place, crouching before the shocked huddle of his former mentor.</p><p>As the realization that Jesse had heard his every word sunk in, the look on Walt’s face reminded Gustavo readily of Don Eladio’s eyes as he realized he’d been poisoned.</p><p>The satisfaction tasted just as sweet.</p><p>“You’re the one who forked over your life savings to a junkie you had to blackmail into helping you just to buy a stupid RV. You’re the idiot who didn’t even know where to get the ‘ephedrine from when you did the pseudo cook. And your dumb ass is the one that <i>chose</i> to deal with a whackjob like Tuco in the middle of a fucking junkyard!”</p><p>…Walt had <i>blackmailed</i> Jesse?</p><p>This just raised even further questions about their history and Walt’s hold over Jesse’s heart. Gustavo turned the new information over in his head as Jesse seethed over Walt, but otherwise focused on the tableau before him. He’d have time to ask Jesse about this later.</p><p>After all, Walt had just handed Gustavo all the time in the world with Jesse.</p><p>“You might be a supergenius when it comes to the chemistry, but that’s <i>all</i> you know!” Jesse continued. “You didn’t know shit about the meth business or slinging on the streets. Everything wanted to do without me came out of old gangster movies. You were a nothing but a shitty teacher when you found out you were dying. All you had to leave your family were, what’d you call ‘em, ‘drips and drabbles’, and you needed me to leave them something just a little less pathetic. <i>You’re</i> the one who’d be nothing without <i>me</i>!”</p><p>That stillness couldn’t last long, and Jesse’s palm slammed down on the rocky ground, the cloud of dust puffing up into Walt’s face and making the old man flinch.</p><p>“You’re the one who fucked up killing Krazy 8, and <i>I’m</i> the one that had to use a <i>bike lock</i> on him in my basement until you grew a fucking pair to kill him yourself,” Jesse rebuked, his rage cooling into ice as hard as the crystals he cracked every week. “You think I’d be dead without you? You couldn’t afford your own damn cancer treatments until you started making big bucks on the side by cooking meth. <i>You’re</i> the one who’d be dead without <i>me</i>!”</p><p>Gustavo reveled in the raw confusion in Walt’s eyes, like a master who forgot his dog’s teeth could sink into his own flesh as easily as anyone else’s.</p><p>For a moment, the last of Jesse’s words echoed in the triangle of space created between the three vehicles, fading into silence punctuated only by Walt’s shocked gasps and Jesse’s angry, heaving breaths.</p><p>Draping a gentle hand over Jesse’s shoulder, Gustavo tugged the boy back to his feet.</p><p>“In the meantime,” he reasserted himself. “There’s still the matter of your brother-in-law.”</p><p>Walt’s gaze and terror snapped back to Gustavo; Jesse looked between them as he stepped back, anxiety bleeding into the anger on his face.</p><p>“He is a problem you promised to resolve,” Gustavo addressed to Walt. “You have failed.” He took a measured step forward, but this time did not crouch before Walt. For this, he needed to tower over the man. “Now, it’s left to me…” His gaze flickered to Jesse, then focused back on Walt. “…to <i>us</i>…to deal with him.”</p><p>Walt’s shoulders slumped as the gravity of his situation bore down on him.</p><p>“You- you can’t-”</p><p>“If you try to interfere,” Gustavo continued. “This becomes a much simpler matter.”</p><p>Walt’s teeth clenched in terrified fury, and for a moment his gaze seemed almost identical to Hector’s.</p><p>Both men who built towers of terror around themselves to disguise how pathetic they were underneath. Both men so quick to treat everyone around them as pawns, yet so unprepared for anyone to fight back against them.</p><p>It had taken Gustavo decades to get his own freedom and revenge. He hoped Jesse would not need to wait nearly as long.</p><p>“I will kill your wife,” Gustavo enunciated, letting every syllable paint Walt’s worst nightmare in his head. “I will kill your son. I will kill your infant daughter.”</p><p>“<i>No!</i>”</p><p>Gustavo sighed, unsurprised at Jesse’s protest.</p><p>“Gus, they’re <i>kids</i>-”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“A <i>baby</i>!”</p><p>“I <i>know</i>!”</p><p>Jesse took a step back at Gustavo’s own outburst.</p><p>“While I understand why you might believe otherwise, I rarely enjoy killing, and I do <i>not</i> wish to murder children,” Gustavo said, enunciating as much for Walt’s benefit as for Jesse’s. “I have no wish to murder innocent people for Walt’s hubris and Schrader’s mistakes…” Here, he turned his focus to Walt. “But I will if I have to. As you once put it…if it’s us versus them, I choose <i>us</i>.”</p><p>Jesse’s face crumpled as Gustavo threw Walt’s own words back at them. His hands spasmed, no doubt remembering the feeling of the trigger as he killed Gale.</p><p>Gustavo considered reaching out for Jesse again, hand almost rising. But given Jesse’s revulsion at all three of them, he let the boy have his moment of space.</p><p>He turned away from Jesse, focusing on the excuse of a man piled on the ground in front of them.</p><p>“How many more innocent people will you force us to kill, just to keep you alive?” Gustavo demanded.</p><p>After Gale, Walt had been the one to insist that if someone else forced one to choose between lives, the resulting deaths were on <i>their</i> head.</p><p>Of course, Walt was just as unprepared for this weapon to be turned back on him, as he was with everything else.</p><p>Small men always were.</p><p>“Your brother-in-law made his choices,” Gustavo continued. “He chose his line of work, he chose to kill Tuco Salamanca, and he chose to keep investigating me even after the DEA shut down his line of inquiry. <i>Someone</i> in your family will die, Walt. It’s up to you whether it’s only the man who made his choices…or several innocent people who had nothing to do with this.”</p><p>Walt shuddered, eyes brimming as his brother-in-law’s impending death sunk in.</p><p>Leaving Walt to that easy choice, Gustavo nodded at Tyrus to begin cutting the man free, as the other man approached with the keys to the rental car in an outstretched hand.</p><p>Jesse hadn’t moved. His eyes shifted back and forth in terror between Gustavo and Walt, but the rest of him remained frozen.</p><p>“Vamanos,” he said, holding out his own hand for Jesse to take or lean into. “You have a lady and child waiting at home for you, while I have business to attend to.”</p><p>But Jesse flinched away from him.</p><p>Por la mierda.</p><p>Still, Gustavo kept outwardly calm as he tried again: “Jesse?”</p><p>The boy’s chest heaved as his breathing approached hyperventilation. Gustavo cursed himself for not being more circumspect. He should’ve sent Jesse away to finish his word with Walter, or perhaps not let him come along at all.</p><p>With a grunt, the last of Walt’s bindings fell away, and the man collapsed into a ramshackle pile of limbs, shaking on the ground between Jesse and Gustavo. Well, perhaps seeing Jesse in emotional pain will be a sufficient motivator to keep Walt from attempting to-</p><p>“You said you owed me.”</p><p>Gustavo turned to Jesse. The boy trembled in his boots, one hand clenched in a tight fist at his side while the other twitched, seeming caught between reaching out for Walt and accepting Gustavo’s hand.</p><p>“When we were talking to Texas,” Jesse continued. “After you promised to let Mr. White live, you said you didn’t consider that part of your debt to me for saving your life. Your life <i>and</i> Mike’s life.”</p><p>On his hands and knees, Walt froze, gaze slowly moving from the ground upward to Jesse.</p><p>Gustavo pursed his lips.</p><p>“You know what kind of power and resources I have,” Gustavo said. “It is no small favor that I owe you. Is Agent Schrader really worth it?”</p><p>Jesse snorted, sounding almost like his regular self for a moment. “<i>No</i>,” he practically spat. “The prick beat the shit out of me in my own living room.” Inexplicably, yet thankfully, Jesse tilted his head to Walt and grumbled, “Guess that makes two of you, now.”</p><p>Walt flinched, but Jesse turned back to Gustavo.</p><p>“I don’t give a fuck about Schrader. That asshole can go to hell for all I care.” Jesse held his hands out, failing abysmally at affecting an aloof posture. “But those kids? His wife? Hell, <i>their</i> wives? That’s worth protecting.” He swallowed. “A-and hey, you just said he kept investigating you after the DEA shut him down, right? And making Mr. White drive him all around and putting that little infidelity bug on your car…none of that sounds legal.”</p><p>“It wasn’t,” Walt said, eyes filling with despicable hope. “That was how I tried to get him to back down, but…”</p><p>Jesse nodded hurriedly, latching on. “Yeah, so like, the DEA ain’t gonna be happy, and they’ll <i>do</i> something about it. Especially since you like, sponsor their stupid little race thing? And you’re friends or whatever with the head honcho, right? So what if we, like…tell them what he’s been doing? Make him look especially stupid or going crazy or whatever?”</p><p>Gustavo didn’t say a word…but he did shift his weight back a little, leaning into Jesse’s words and lifting his chin up, indicating that Jesse keep talking.</p><p>For once in his life, Walt did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut.</p><p>“So like, we use that. We use Schrader’s illegal investigation and like…make his boss thing he’s going crazy and needs to be committed or arrested or some shit.” Jesse straightened as some idea occurred to him. “You were just talking about employing me on paper somewhere as a way of laundering my money — heh, what if we launder my money at the laundry? DEA already knows I was <i>gonna</i> charge him with police brutality and only dropped it because of the cartel hit. Maybe we make it look like he was coming after me or something? Stalking, or harassment? He’s been illegally investigating you and found nothing, and then I come along and resume my police brutality lawsuit or whatever — or even just threaten to — now that all the good publicity from his attack’s died down.”</p><p>Gustavo narrowed his eyes, but continued to say nothing. Jesse’s shoulders drooped in discouragement, but he didn’t let that stop him.</p><p>“So like, we keep him alive, we make him look insane, maybe frame him for something or Mr. White ‘confesses’ to Schrader’s boss about the Nancy Drew bullshit. Make it look like he’s stalking me or something, after he already beat me up. We can destroy his career, and bury his information so deep that if the DEA ever sees anything weird about your or the laundry or Los Pollos Hermanos, they’ll toss it in the trash just because of Schrader. He’ll become the joke of the DEA, like a law-enforcement laughing stock.”</p><p>Pushing himself up to his feet with the careful movements of the aged, injured, and infirm, Walt cringed as Jesse laid the destruction of Schrader’s career — but still said nothing.</p><p>Better to end the man’s career than his life.</p><p>Jesse attempted a wobbly smile in Gustavo’s direction. “And I mean…I was gonna go after him with everything I had, for money and to destroy him. I don’t need the money now, but that doesn’t mean I’ll just forgive and forget, right? Saving those kids and innocent people alone is worth cashing in on saving your life — but getting to do that <i>and</i> destroy Schrader’s career, watch it crash and burn around him? Hell, man, I’ll come out feeling like I owe you.”</p><p>Gustavo rather doubted that.</p><p>Oh, he had no doubt that Jesse still bore ill will towards Schrader, but not enough to pull this off; Jesse’s entire focus was on the children, with maybe some heart to spare for their mother.</p><p>Still, Gustavo <i>had</i> wanted Jesse to start standing up for himself — and for Gustavo’s empire as well.</p><p>“Besides,” Jesse continued. “They already know it was the cartel that send those guys after Schrader, and you just decimated them. You’ll buy yourself time right now, sure, but how long before someone wonders what Schrader knew, that the cartel was still willing to send someone out to kill him even in the middle of…that mess you just made? Eventually we’re gonna be back at square one. So why not start from there, anyway?”</p><p>Gustavo looked between Jesse and Walt.</p><p>Jesse’s idea and argument had merit. While killing Schrader would be the fastest way to get rid of him and end the investigation, it would only surely end the investigation for now. Eventually, someone would come looking for him again. Discrediting Schrader in the eyes of the local law enforcement would do wonders for protecting them in the long run…but in the short term, it would be a gamble, because if they left Schrader alive and he kept looking…</p><p>Not to mention, this would be yet another instance of Jesse and Walt protecting each other, even working together almost.</p><p>“The idea has merit,” Gustavo announced. “But it is not without its own risks.”</p><p>He thought over his schedules, over the likely effects of his attack on the cartel, what he expected to happen in the near future and further beyond that. Most likely, the next three to four weeks would be quiet, which Gustavo had planned for.</p><p>“Two weeks,” he continued. “If, in two weeks’ time, Schrader has ended his investigation, then the White-Schrader family will all live, and this matter stays permanently behind us.”</p><p>Walt and Jesse both slumped in relief-</p><p>“But there’s a caveat.”</p><p>-and then tensed again.</p><p>Gustavo looked at Jesse. “If, in two weeks’ time, Schrader is still looking into us, he dies — and one way or another, anyone who attempts to interfere with that will be <i>dealt with</i>.” He looked meaningfully at Walt, before addressing Jesse again. “I can leave him alive, but kill his family. Or, I can kill the men who are making their choices, and suffer the consequences of them — while the innocent women and children live on.”</p><p>Jesse’s face paled and he shivered, despite the New Mexican heat.</p><p>“It will be up to you.”</p><p>Gustavo could see Jesse swallow…and stand tall, looking as terrified but desperate as he had in the cartel’s laboratory.</p><p>“Well, it won’t matter, because this will work,” Jesse declared. He sounded more like he was pleading than stating, but he still spoke with all of what little confidence he had.</p><p>While the situation was far from ideal, <i>this</i> had been one of Gustavo’s biggest goals, now that the cartel was decimated and all of Max’s killers were dead.</p><p>“Two weeks,” Gustavo reiterated. He glared at Walt. “We will make contact once we’ve firmly established what your role in Jesse’s plan will be.”</p><p>This time, he did not wait for Jesse to come to him. As Gustavo’s men returned to their vehicle, and Walt stumbled toward his rental, Gustavo laid a firm hand on Jesse’s shoulder to direct him back to the Volvo.</p><p>When Jesse had his door open, he spared one last, regretful look for Walter as the man slithered into his rental — but then climbed into Gustavo’s car, shutting the door and looking forward and refusing to even look in Walter’s direction.</p><p>Gustavo obliged his new determination, making an extra large loop to get back towards the road so that Jesse didn’t have to turn his head to avoid looking at Walter’s rental car.</p><p>At first, neither of them said a word, the silence pickling between them.</p><p>Then Jesse said, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Gustavo tilted his head in acknowledgment that he heard, but he did not respond.</p><p>“I just…Mr. White’s gonna — he’d never just sit back and let you kill his family,” Jesse rambled. “And then you would have to do something about it, and I can’t…I can just let you guys kill kids or get them killed. Neither of you.”</p><p>Gustavo clenched his fists around the steering wheel, silently snarling at being lumped in into <i>any</i> category together with Walter White.</p><p>“And if you two went to war,” Jesse muttered, his gaze still fixed outside the windshield. “I don’t know which of you would win…but the rest of us would definitely lose.” He snorted bitterly, slumping down in his seat again. “Like you said, Mr. White usually comes out fine no matter how much the rest of us get covered in shit.”</p><p>Fists loosening, Gustavo let out his breath; this meeting and its ending hadn’t been a complete loss, after all.</p><p>“I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending I don’t want him dead,” Gustavo said. “But I will say that you are one of the reasons <i>why</i> I want him dead.”</p><p>On the open road, he could afford to glance to his side and see Jesse looking at him in confusion.</p><p>“You have sacrificed so much and done so much for the man,” Gustavo said. “And instead of building you up, he kept crushing you down…no, <i>pulling</i> you down. Tell me, how did he react to finding out you were cooking his formula without him?”</p><p>“This time or last time?”</p><p>Gustavo blinked in surprise, looking at Jesse in askance before focusing on the road again. “‘Last time’?”</p><p>He could hear Jesse’s swallow.</p><p>“When I sold you the meth after Mr. White said he was out?” Jesse asked. Then he rolled his eyes and added, “And then you fucked with us to hire Walt and get rid of me.”</p><p>Gustavo sighed as Jesse threw his old mistake back in his face.</p><p>“I…apologize for that.”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“Jesse?”</p><p>“Uh- sorry, it’s just…I’m not use to that,” Jesse muttered. “People apologizing when they fuck me over.”</p><p>Thank Walt for failing at such a simple and fundamental part of being a decent human being in a civilized society.</p><p>“I should have accepted your offer then, when you first came to me offering your meth,” Gustavo said. “All of this…<i>mess</i> could have been avoided.”</p><p>Jesse snorted. “When I showed him, he called it ‘substandard product’.”</p><p>For every complication Walt introduced, he also seemed to make Gustavo’s job easier.</p><p>“That was no substandard product you cooked down in Juarez,” Gustavo said.</p><p>He could see Jesse’s shoulders move with a shrug. “I dunno if what I cooked back then was as pure as the stuff I made down in Mexico.”</p><p>“Even if it weren’t,” Gustavo said. “It would still have been purer than anything else on the market at the time. If Walt had meant it when he got out of the business, then even the product you gave me would have been the purest crystal meth on the streets, and given me a tremendous advantage against the cartel.”</p><p>“…but he <i>did</i> mean it…?”</p><p>“He didn’t come back to me because of the money or because I coerced him,” Gustavo reminded him. “He came back because of his <i>pride</i>. He would’ve found a way back eventually. I just sped up the process to my advantage — and the way I see it, better I got you later, than never.”</p><p>Jesse snorted again, a dark, bitter chuckled that sounded almost too deep to come from such a young chest.</p><p>“He called it an inferior product,” Jesse said. “I asked him to set me up a meet between me and, well, <i>you</i>, but he refused. I was going to cut him in and everything, he wouldn’t have had to do anymore work.”</p><p>“You would have given him money for nothing?” Gustavo asked, frowning.</p><p>“I mean, it’s not <i>nothing</i>,” Jesse said. “Like…he <i>did</i> teach me the formula and how to cook and all that. And between that and setting up the meet, and the fact he was the one who made the Blue Sky meth famous in the first place, it’s not like I would’ve just been giving him free stacks, y’know? More like…legacy payments? Or, uh, what’s it called when like companies put characters on shoes and backpacks and shit and gotta pay the movie producer or whatever?”</p><p>“Licensing.”</p><p>“Yeah, that,” Jesse said. “Since it’s the Heisenberg name and all. ‘Cause…he <i>did</i> do a lot for me. And I get that this business is rough and kinda sucks sometimes and why he wouldn’t want to stay in it forever. So I thought he’d be stoked. He’d already done most of the hard work, all he needed to do was introduce me to you, then sit back and let the green roll in.”</p><p>Gustavo fought down his grin.</p><p>“Like I said,” Gustavo said. “If he were just interested in the money, he would likely have accepted my offer to him the first time around, three million for three months work.”</p><p>“Which is <i>way</i> over his magic number.”</p><p>“Magic number?” However much it aggravated Gustavo, hearing their history together was both necessary and fascinating in equal measures.</p><p>“Yeah, when, uh…when we started out, and he thought he was gonna die soon? Neither of us were stoked to be dealing with Tuco, and wanted to be done with him as soon as possible, but we didn’t think we could like, kill him or anything. And we were still splitting everything fifty-fifty.”</p><p>As they passed a road sign welcoming them back into Albuquerque, Jesse swallowed again, breathing in deep as if he needed to brace himself.</p><p>“Mr. White figured out what his family would need to get by after he died. He calculated it all in his head, on the spot — shit like mortgage and cost of living and college and whatever. Seven-hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars. That was all he wanted. And our deal with Tuco got us seventy grand a week.”</p><p>Gustavo ran the numbers in his head, while voicing them aloud. “You needed a little under a million and a half, yes? Seven-hundred and thirty-seven…except you two were splitting everything in half, so multiply that by two…one-thousand four-hundred and seventy-four. Divided by seventy, it should be approximately twenty-one weeks?”</p><p>“…yeah,” Jesse muttered. “Something like that. We were gonna get that million and a half, then call it quits. Then Tuco fucking kidnapped us, and Schrader killed him, which blew up <i>that</i> plan. We tried to cook and distribute on our own again, but it just wasn’t enough…so Saul eventually set us up with you.”</p><p>It would be more accurate to say <i>Mike</i> had set them up, but Gustavo didn’t think it would be prudent to clarify that.</p><p>“So you two were going to work for months towards a million and a half, then quit. Then Walt was going to make three million in three months, then quit.”</p><p>“Until I fucked that up for him,” Jesse muttered, turning in his seat. Gustavo wondered whether Jesse was looking to see if his men were still following them, or if Walt was — but he didn’t ask.</p><p>“As I understand it,” Gustavo said instead. “Walt engineered Gale’s removal and your return when you did not even want the job.”</p><p>Jesse snorted, falling back in his seat to watch the streets pass them by.</p><p>“Like I said, I was gonna sue Schrader for everything eh was worth. Dude literally stalked into my home and beat the shit out of me, I woulda won that case in a heartbeat, til the cartel hit. Mr. White just wanted me to not sue his brother-in-law…and now I get to destroy him, anyway.”</p><p>“If that’s what it takes,” Gustavo cautioned. “Deceive your enemy based on how you want them to <i>act</i>, not how you want them to <i>think</i>. What Schrader and the DEA actually think of us is largely irrelevant, as long as the investigation into us ceases.”</p><p>Jesse fell silent. For a moment, Gustavo debated letting him stew the rest of their way to the laundry.</p><p>On the one hand, Jesse clearly still had bitter feelings toward Walt, and that sentiment would be strongest if Jesse built it up himself in his head.</p><p>On the other hand, those feelings were conflicted, and Gustavo did not want to risk Jesse’s Stockholm Syndrome overcoming the bitterness.</p><p>“There is a cell-phone inside the glove box,” Gustavo instructed, and did not need to say more as Jesse extracted it for him. “Put it on speaker and speed-dial 5 for me.”</p><p>Despite the trembling, Jesse complied. For a moment, the ringing echoed around Gustavo’s car.</p><p>Then his doctor answered, “Hola, Gustavo. ¿Qué pasó? ¿Está todo bien?”</p><p>“I’m very well, thank you,” Gustavo answered in English. “I was wondering if Mike is well enough to speak?</p><p>“Sí, sí, let me go find him…”</p><p>As the tinny sound of footsteps from almost a thousand miles away filled the car, Jesse sagged in relief.</p><p>“<i>How is he, really?</i>” Gustavo asked in Spanish.</p><p>“<i>Well,</i>” his old friend answered truthfully. “<i>Just too stubborn to admit he isn’t Jesse’s age or even yours, and cannot take such an injury and get back up like he used to.</i>”</p><p>“I recognized my name,” Jesse grumbled, but didn’t seem all that put out when Gustavo chuckled and the doctor laughed outright.</p><p>Even out of the corner of his eye, Gustavo could see and feel Jesse’s smile when a gruff American voice answered, “Hey, boss, what’s up?”</p><p>Jesse waited a moment, but when Gustavo nodded, he asked, “Hey Mike, it’s both of us. How you holding up?”</p><p>“I’m fine, kid,” Mike answered. “You did good work, down here. It’ll take a lot more than <i>this</i> to kill me.”</p><p>“Excellent,” Gustavo said. “Now, Jesse and I just brokered a deal with Walter White. Among other things, he will be assisting us in discrediting Agent Schrader in order to press Merkert into forcibly ceasing his investigations into us, independent or otherwise. You said the DEA did not take his investigation seriously?”</p><p>“Nope,” Mike answered, popping the ‘p’ sound, in a way Gustavo had previously only heard from the man when he spoke to his granddaughter and other young children. Did he hope Jesse never found out, or look forward to the day he did? “They don’t know about the Hardy Boys routine, but while they were willing to hear him out due to your finger prints being at Gale’s, ultimately none of them took it seriously — and whatever you answered to their questions seemed to satisfy everyone ‘cept Schrader.”</p><p>“Good,” Gustavo said.</p><p>Jesse snorted. “I guess making friend with ‘em really pays off.”</p><p>“Staying connected with local and national law enforcement has many benefits,” Gustavo said. “This is only one of them — but right now, it is the most crucial benefit of all. They think they know me, and the best way to get someone to believe what you want them to is to tell them exactly what they expect to hear.”</p><p>“Uh-huh,” Jesse answered. “So what exactly does Schrader’s boss expect to hear, and how do we tell it to him in a way that’ll get somebody to make Schrader back off for good?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. La Luz de Plato</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Also per my usual style: yes, chapter count went up. Let's hope it only goes up this once.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Jesse finished explaining his plan that night, his words echoed around the Whites’ living-room. The ugly clock ticked away the seconds that felt as long as hours while they waited for Mr. White’s response. Jesse wished he could sink into the cushions on his end of the sofa.</p>
<p>“Do you understand?” Gus demanded from the other end of the sofa, rooted between Jesse and Mr. White.</p>
<p>Jesse almost heard the grinding of Mr. White’s teeth, even across the distance of the coffee table that crouched between himself and Mr. White’s tub-shaped sofa-chair. His ‘lucky cigarette’ wasn’t <i>actually</i> burning a hole in his pocket, but it sure felt that way.</p>
<p>Still, Mr. White survived shit like a cockroach.</p>
<p>“I break down ‘confessing’ to Hank’s boss about ‘our’ illegal investigation, and admit that I crashed my car on purpose, in order to stop Hank from breaking the law. As if Hank overwhelmed me and I was too scared to try anything else, any sooner,” Mr. White drew out. “In other words, I pretend to be the milquetoast and pathetic old man everyone thinks I am.”</p>
<p>His elbows digging into his knees, Jesse dropped his face into his hands.</p>
<p>“If that’s how you wish to think of it,” Gus said.</p>
<p>“Mr. White…” Jesse groaned, lifting his head back up. “Look, if we can pull this off, then you help us save your brother-in-law’s life, <i>and</i> you still get the money!”</p>
<p>He leaned forward, pleading for Mr. White to listen to him <i>just this once</i>.</p>
<p>Mr. White leaned forward, too, as if ready to leap out of his chair and loom over Jesse. A sharp glare from Gus kept Mr. White in his seat, but it didn’t keep him quiet.</p>
<p>“We have suffered and bled, <i>literally</i>, for our business,” Mr. White cried out, fingers curling into the arms of his sofa chair like claws. “Excuse me for not being <i>happy</i> about having to sell it out for nothing!”</p>
<p>“A million and a half isn’t nothing!” Jesse shot back. “And that’s just from Gus. How much of the money from before do you still have?”</p>
<p>Mr. White scoffed as he fell back in his seat. Jesse glanced at Gus, but seeing as his new boss merely watched <i>him</i>, Jesse kept talking.</p>
<p>“Look, when you, uh, when you started this thing, did you ever dream of having almost two million?” he asked. “I know for a fact that you didn’t. I know for a fact all you needed was 737,000, ‘cause you worked it all out, like, mathematically.”</p>
<p>Jesse looked between his old boss and his new one; between the obvious anger that scared him, and the blank nothingness that terrified him.</p>
<p>“And…if it’s…if it’s about the, uh, the money,” Jesse offered. “What about three million?”</p>
<p>Mr. White frowned at Jesse, mustache and beard bunching up in his confusion. Gus’ head snapped around to Jesse, lips flattening into a thin line.</p>
<p>Shit.</p>
<p>“I’m not asking you for more!” Jesse cried out, up holding a placating hand toward Gus. “<i>I’ll</i> pay him, out of what I earn.”</p>
<p>“…for the second time today, I find myself wondering you why you would give away your money to him,” Gus said, voice low and steady.</p>
<p>Jesse sighed, clasping his hands together as he tried to put his nebulous ideas into words that would make sense to them.</p>
<p>Or at least one of them. They both had a knack for figuring out Jesse’s thoughts before he did.</p>
<p>“That was Mr. White’s original deal with you, right?” he asked them, before focusing on Gus. “Three months, three million, and then he’s done? He only split it to get me on board, but now, even if I’m taking a lot less than him, I’m gonna be sticking around for more than three months. I’ve got plenty of dough for now. I can go a few months or a year without taking home any more money, y’know? Mr. White gets his original pay day…”</p>
<p>Then he faced Mr. White.</p>
<p>“You could be out,” Jesse reasoned. “You could spend time with your family. No more worrying about them getting hurt, or finding out about everything. Isn’t this what you’ve been working for?”</p>
<p>Jesse’s words faded into the abyss of the Whites’ living room, the ticking clock overtaking them once again.</p>
<p>Until Mr. White sighed, looking between Gus and Jesse as he nodded.</p>
<p>Jesse fell back in his seat, letting out a relieved breath as his arms dropped, one hand landing on the hem of Gus’ coat draped between him and Jesse. Gus didn’t look as pleased now as just a few minutes ago, but he also nodded.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Jesse said. “Both of you.”</p>
<p>“I still can’t believe you’re agreeing to this,” Mr. White cut in.</p>
<p>Jesse groaned.</p>
<p>Goddamnit, just <i>once</i> couldn’t Mr. White accept a good thing?</p>
<p>“You’re the one who did the math,” Mr. White continued.</p>
<p>Jesse winced, looking to Gus, as Mr. White kept going.</p>
<p>“That…Gus got $96 million from three months of producing two hundreds pounds a week. Out of which, we were only getting three. I assume that’s all you’ll get going forward, working for Gus.”</p>
<p>Gus rolled his eyes.</p>
<p>“Nah,” Jesse tried to reassure. Maybe knowing Jesse wasn’t going to make nearly as much as him would help? “I’m only taking a bit over half of your deal. That…that three percent difference in purity, y’know?”</p>
<p>Mr. White shook his head, same was he did back when he taught Jesse how to cook Blue Sky in their RV out in the desert.</p>
<p>“Pennies on the dollar, Jesse?” Mr. White asked, like <i>he</i> was the one coming out short. “And that’s what you’re gonna sell out for? Pennies? Why?”</p>
<p>“Three million isn’t pennies,” Jesse mumbled. At a sharp, sidelong look from Gus, Jesse straightened, and added firmly: “It’s more money than I’ve ever seen. And when it comes down to it, did we get into this business to make meth, or to make money?”</p>
<p>Mr. White rubbed at his forehead, fingers almost shaking from the tension.</p>
<p>“Besides which,” Gus challenged. “Do you believe that the entirety of the remaining $93 million is my profit?” He shook his head, and some part of Jesse warmed to see someone <i>disappointed</i> in Mr. White’s calculations, like Mr. White always was with him. “Do you have <i>any</i> idea what goes into running a business, even a meth business? The costs of distribution, or of logistics?”</p>
<p>Gus narrowed his eyes at Walt. While he remained relaxed at his end of the sofa, his shoulders stiffened under that bland shirt. Jesse’s own heart started pounding, and he wondered how neither of his bosses could hear him.</p>
<p>“Do you know how much that lab cost to make in the first place?” Gus demanded.</p>
<p>Mr. Walt seemed exasperated, but when he looked at Jesse’s face, he released a beleaguered breath and started to answer: “Well, I know the tanks must’ve cost at least fifty-thousand, the set of racks approximately six-thousand, the distillation set-up would-”</p>
<p>“Eight million.”</p>
<p>Jesse’s brain spasmed at that, sure that he couldn’t have heard right.</p>
<p>“Eight million dollars to construct the laboratory <i>alone</i>,” Gus lad out. “I also had to build the laundry over it, then establish that business in its own right. I needed bribes to create all this without attracting legal attention to the disparities. I needed to purchase an entire logistics company. While they distribute ingredients for my legitimate business, they also need extra men and resources for the drug they transport with absolute silence and security. I have to pay armed guards almost every step of the way, and pay staff handsomely enough to make sure they stay silent. And, of course, all the usual expenses of business — administration, overhead, raw materials.”</p>
<p>Here, he turned his attention to Jesse.</p>
<p>“Add in the investment costs of constructing that laboratory and the laundry above it. Then factoring in the salaries of the laundry staff, the price of all that electrical power, your ingredients, armed guards and their weapons, occasional bribes…the operating costs of that super lab comes out to an average of fifty-thousand dollars.”</p>
<p>“Per week?” Jesse asked, eyes bugging open.</p>
<p>“Per <i>day</i>.”</p>
<p>Jesse’s jaw dropped, breath freezing in his lungs.</p>
<p>Every day he dragged his feet into that lab, every day he sat in his rolling chair waiting for Mr. White to show up, every day he cooked there, the day he drugged Mr. White to get the cook done…</p>
<p>…and it cost Gus fifty-grand each time?</p>
<p>Mr. White’s eyebrows rose, but otherwise he nodded, like he expected numbers like that.</p>
<p>“That’s…” Jesse worked through the math in his head and with his fingers. His face heated up when he realized both men waited on him, already having done the math in their heads way faster than him. Despite this, he still calculated outloud, “A hundred grand every two days. Half of three-sixty-ish days in a year is a hundred and eighty, so…” He multiplied the numbers in his head, once, twice, and then a third time — and still couldn’t believe it. “Eighteen <i>million</i> a year?”</p>
<p>Both men nodded this time, Mr. White with an eye-roll and Gus with a smile — which melted into a severe line when he looked back at Mr. White.</p>
<p>“And all of this is just the location itself,” Gus added, like he hadn’t tossed Jesse’s understanding of the business world into a blender and hit the highest setting. “Not to mention the <i>rest</i> of the distribution network — the very part of the business you two so desperately sought someone else to handle for you. Including things like…” Here, he gave Jesse another smile, this one wry and almost amused. “Air travel.”</p>
<p>Jesse couldn’t help the snort, nor the smile when Mr. White looked confused. How much <i>did</i> that private plane cost, anyway? The plane itself might not have been that much, but bribes and payment to get across the border without anybody noticing? <i>That</i> must’ve given the short flight a six-digit price tag.</p>
<p>And how much did Gus pay for the little medical center waiting for them? All that equipment, all those supplies, the blood bags, the medicines-</p>
<p>
  <i>“This man pays my salary!”</i>
</p>
<p>-and the nurses and doctor still taking care of Mike, even now as they spoke.</p>
<p>Gus’ expression returned to his flat anger when he refocused on Mr. White.</p>
<p>“You received one of the most generous portions of the profit from the meth,” Gus continued. “A <i>very</i> generous income.”</p>
<p>“Which I threw away <i>for Jesse</i>.”</p>
<p>Jesse cringed, the venom in Mr. White’s voice hitting him like a ricin-tipped dart.</p>
<p>“…I know,” Jesse murmured, looking down at his scuffed shoes; this time, his face heated up in shame. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be,” Gus countered. Jesse looked over at him, but his gaze stayed on Mr. White. “After all, killing Gale Boetticher wasn’t your idea, was it? In fact, you fell apart in the aftermath, while Walt carried on on as if nothing were lost.”</p>
<p>Jesse swallowed, unsure why Gus defended him.</p>
<p>After all, he’s the one who slit Victor’s throat just to <i>make a point</i>.</p>
<p>And he’s the one who let his dealers use kids until Jesse piped up.</p>
<p>“I…did kinda make it necessary,” Jesse suggested, looking to Mr. White with a silent apology.</p>
<p>Jesse knew he’d get all of Mr. White’s share now that he was cooking glass on his own. Maybe he should split it with Mr. White anyway, since it was his fault Mr. White got fired?</p>
<p>“Hmm…” Gus said, idle hum slicing into his thoughts like a boxcutter. “Tell me, Jesse: When your friend started dealing in someone else’s territory, was that <i>your</i> idea?”</p>
<p>Jesse froze.</p>
<p>It felt like his heart froze with him, before it tried to pound its way out of his throat.</p>
<p>“I…uh…no?”</p>
<p>“Oh, please!” Mr. White barked, sitting up again.</p>
<p>Even he fell silent when Gus’ attention snapped back to him.</p>
<p>“And how did he react to your friend’s death?” Gus added, not looking away from Mr. White.</p>
<p>“Um…he didn’t?”</p>
<p>“Don’t forget, Jesse,” Mr. Walt said. “Gus’ guys killed him in the first place.”</p>
<p>“And yet, Christian Ortega was only in danger in the first place because of you,” Gus countered.</p>
<p>Jesse swallowed down the bile that rose up at their argument. No matter who he chose, he’d end up working for the guy who got one of his best friends killed. Both of them saw Combo’s death as the cost of doing business.</p>
<p>But only one of them had changed how he did business when Jesse brought it up.</p>
<p>The two men glared at each other.</p>
<p>Jesse jiggled his knee. How they could look each other right in the eye so much? Just sitting next to them like this made Jesse want to curl up in a little ball and hide under Gus’ coat.</p>
<p>God, he’d kill for a hit right now-</p>
<p>Except he’d actually killed, before.</p>
<p>Twice, now.</p>
<p>Stomach churning, he said, “Look, Mr. White — you know your part, right? And look at it this way, you’re getting the whole three million without even doing the whole three months’ work. You can finally get out of the business and do whatever you want. No more killing or hiding everything from your family.”</p>
<p>Neither of them moved. </p>
<p>Jesse wondered if he’d even spoken.</p>
<p>Maybe he only said the words in his head.</p>
<p>Or maybe this entire conversation was just a bad midnight toke dream.</p>
<p>But after an excruciating minute, Mr. White looked away, nodding at Jesse with a clenched jaw.</p>
<p>“I’ll do it,” he reiterated. Lips pursed shut, he released a sharp breath through his nose. He muttered under his breath, “At least my <i>wife</i> will be happy that I’m done.”</p>
<p>Jesse opened his mouth, but when he couldn’t think of a response that wouldn’t aggravate the man further, he shut it again.</p>
<p>“If that will be all for you gentleman?” Mr. White ground out.</p>
<p>Despite the terrifying tension of a moment before, Gus responded with his Los Pollos Hermanos smile. “I’ll just use the restroom, and then we will be on our way.”</p>
<p>Mr. White clenched his fists as Gus got up and headed out of the room, not even hesitating to look for the bathroom after not actually <i>asking</i> if he could use the john in the first place.</p>
<p>Jesse had seen weirder power moves than this, but not many.</p>
<p>Which disturbed him once he thought about it. Mr. White once blew up a drug dealers’ office, Gus slit a guy’s throat with a box-cutter, and both of them had killed people right in front of Jesse without their expressions ever changing.</p>
<p>He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how, when facing down <i>each other</i>, they asserted dominance using math and walking to the bathroom, instead of explosions and murder.</p>
<p>“I was in it to make an empire.”</p>
<p>He twitched his head up to look at Mr. White. “Huh?”</p>
<p>“You asked me if I wanted to make money or make meth,” Mr. White said, steepling his fingers under his beard. “Neither. I wanted to make an empire.”</p>
<p>“…But <i>why</i>?”</p>
<p>“Have you ever heard of a company called Gray Matter?”</p>
<p>Jesse scrunched up his face. “What does a random company have to do with any of this?”</p>
<p>Mr. White’s hands dropped in his lap.</p>
<p>“I co-founded it in grad school with a couple of friends of mine,” he explained. “Actually, I was the one who named it. Back then, we were small time. We had a couple patents pending, nothing earth shattering. Of course, we all saw the potential.” He got that misty look in his eye, and part of Jesse’s heart ached at the familiarity. “We were gonna take the world by storm.”</p>
<p>“…okay?”</p>
<p>Mr. White shook his head out of whatever trip down memory lane he’d started down on.</p>
<p>“And then…this, uh, well, something happened between the three of us. And I’m not gonna go into detail.”</p>
<p>He sat up straight, and Jesse gestured at him to keep going. He still didn’t understand what an old start-up had to do with dealing meth, but figured Mr. White would get to his point eventually.</p>
<p>“But for personal reasons, I decided to leave the company. And I sold my share to my two partners. I took a buyout for $5,000. Now at the time, that was a lot of money for me.” Mr. White shook his head, regret seeping out of his face. “Care to guess what that company is worth now?” </p>
<p>“Millions?” Jesse tried.</p>
<p>“Billions, with a ‘b’.”</p>
<p>Jesse’s eyebrows rose, a number upending his world view for the second time in ten minutes.</p>
<p>No wonder the costs of Gus’ business didn’t surprise Mr. White.</p>
<p>“2.15 billion as of last Friday,” Mr. White pressed on. “I look it up every week. And I sold my share, my potential, for $5,000. I sold my kids’ birthright for a few months’ rent.”</p>
<p>…aww, shit.</p>
<p>“Well…now you’ll have the money to start another company?” Jesse offered, not sure what else to say with that kind of information. “You’re a genius, Mr. White. You can start an ‘empire’, a legit one that the whole world gets to see and you can leave to your kids.”</p>
<p>Mr. White smiled for the first time that night, head drooping with a little shake, before he looked back up at Jesse.</p>
<p>“I appreciate your faith in me, Jesse, but…being the best at something is a very rare thing. You don’t just toss something like that away, or whatever you stood to build with it. And starting a business within the confines of the law is much harder and more time-consuming than dealing meth had been for us. With or without remission, time isn’t exactly on my side.”</p>
<p>Jesse started to nod in understanding…then narrowed his eyes.</p>
<p>“But…it’s not like it would’ve been yours to toss out, anyway.”</p>
<p>Mr. Walt’s grateful smile dropped, vanishing into the depths of his bushy beard and mustache.</p>
<p>“You were working for Gus, we both were,” Jesse said. “And look, I get it, I’m the one that fucked it up for you. But Mr. White, if I hadn’t…then it’s not like you would’ve been building up an ‘empire’. You would’ve worked for him and then gotten out, or just kept working for him. Either way, you wouldn’t have been making your own thing.” He took a bracing breath, and tried to give Mr. White an encouraging smile. “So that means you’re not <i>really</i> throwing anything away or losing anything important…right? You’re not really losing?”</p>
<p>He didn’t know why he expected that to work.</p>
<p>As Mr. White bared his teeth in a snarl, Jesse wished he could reach back to a minute ago and clap a hand over his mouth.</p>
<p>“What would you know?” Mr. White spat. He fell back in his seat again, arms draped over his chair and legs sprawled like he’d watched the Godfather one too many times. “What have you got in your life? Nobody, and nothing…oh wait, yes: video games and go-karts.”</p>
<p>What the-</p>
<p>“And when you get tired of that, what then, huh?”</p>
<p>“M-Mister White-”</p>
<p>“And how soon will you start using again? You really think Gus will give you anymore chances? Next time you backslide, you won’t go to rehab, you’ll go into the <i>ground</i>!”</p>
<p>Jesse hated the way his eyes started to water.</p>
<p>Why did he keep expecting better of Mr. White?</p>
<p>Why could Mr. White still cut him down with nothing but a few words?</p>
<p>Swallowing down the tears only seemed to make the lump in his throat worse.</p>
<p>“Well lucky for you,” Jesse croaked. “After we’re done with the DEA, I won’t be your problem anymore.”</p>
<p>He cursed the hoarseness in his voice. Mr. White could see and hear how hard his words hit Jesse.</p>
<p>But Mr. White would’ve seen that even if Jesse stayed quiet, so he might as well keep talking.</p>
<p>“You’re right, I’m the reason we got on Gus’ bad side in the first place,” Jesse said. “But I killed Gale, and you didn’t even care. Then I spent weeks carrying poison in my pocket to take out Gus, too-”</p>
<p>“And you were too much of a coward to even do it!” Mr. White lurched forward and held out his hand. “I want the ricin back. <i>Now</i>.”</p>
<p>Jesse shook his head. A few tears escaped down his cheeks, but he didn’t break his gaze from Mr. White — not this time.</p>
<p>“I don’t have it anymore,” he lied, clenching his hands into a tight clasp to keep from reaching toward the pocket the vial burned in. “I flushed it down the shitter. The same one I flushed Emilio’s dissolved body down!” Mr. White’s eyes went wide. “You want any more ricin, make it your damn self. I’m <i>done</i> killing people for you, when you don’t even care.”</p>
<p>“I <i>do</i> care,” Mr. White also started to lie.</p>
<p>At least he didn’t try to finish when Jesse violently shook his head.</p>
<p>“You know Combo got me that RV?”</p>
<p>Mr. White looked downright <i>bewildered</i>, and Jesse persisted.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he said, head bobbing as he tried to steady his shaking shoulders. “Those RVs are worth a lot, y’know? And his mom kept theirs in pretty good condition. He could’ve sold it to anyone for a lot more, but he sold it to me, to <i>us</i>. You and me never would’ve gotten started cooking meth in the first place if it weren’t for him. And you didn’t even remember his <i>name</i>, let alone give a damn when he died for you.”</p>
<p>“And you think Gus will?” Mr. White threw back. “I spent eighty-thousand dollars to get your friend Badger out of jail, instead of killing him like I could have. Gus slit his own subordinate’s throat and left the body on the ground just to make a point.”</p>
<p>Jesse bolted to his feet, knowing Mr. White made sense and yet also <i>didn’t</i>. Except Jesse wasn’t sure how and he couldn’t think and-</p>
<p>“Look…look, I know how upset you are about what happened to Gale,” Mr. White placated. “I am just as upset as you are-”</p>
<p>“Are you?” Jesse snarled, for once standing over Mr. White. “Really?”</p>
<p>“How can you say that?” Mr. White yelled. “Jesus! I mean, I’m the one who was actually friends with the man, and worked with him for over a month.”</p>
<p>Mr. White had the balls to look <i>offended</i>.</p>
<p>“What, do I have to curl up in a ball of tears in front of you?” Mr. White pressed. “Do I have to lock myself in a room and get high to prove it to you? Do I need to-”</p>
<p>
  <i>“¡Basta!”</i>
</p>
<p>Gus’ sharp shout cut right between Jesse and Mr. White as the man stormed back into the living room.</p>
<p>One day, Jesse would have to question why he felt <i>saved</i> by his throat-slitting, drug-dealing boss’ yelling…but not today. Right now, his shoulders sagged in relief. He backed off from Mr. White, carefully stepping back down the gap between the coffee table and the couch as Gus advanced on Jesse’s former ‘partner’.</p>
<p>“<i>This</i> is why you won’t go near him again, once the DEA is dealt with!” Gus hissed. “I can’t even leave you alone with him for five minutes!”</p>
<p>Despite the cold rage saturating his voice, Gus’ hands remained steady as he reached out, one hand collecting his coat while the other wrapped over Jesse’s shoulder.</p>
<p>Jesse leaned into the touch — which Mr. White focused on like a laser, his glare so intense Jesse half expected Gus’ hand to combust.</p>
<p>But it didn’t, and he broke away so he could shuffle towards the front door.</p>
<p>“I think we can see ourselves out,” Gus said, tugging on his coat. Without another word, he pivoted on his heel and followed Jesse out of the house, leaving Mr. White to seethe behind them.</p>
<p>Just as well that Gus came out last and closed the door behind them; Jesse would’ve slammed it shut and woken up half this quiet neighborhood.</p>
<p>For a moment, Jesse stood on the Whites’ driveway, shaking in his shoes next to Mr. White’s shitty rental car.</p>
<p>This time, he flinched at the brush of a hand against his shoulder.</p>
<p>Then he leaned into the touch again, letting Gus lead him to the Volvo.</p>
<p>Jesse knew he should feel more embarrassed about the guy pulling open the door for him, but he dropped into the passenger seat with a choked out <i>thanks.</i> His shaking hand reached out for the door to yank it closed, and he could pretend he wasn’t <i>completely</i> useless.</p>
<p>As Gus rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat, it took Jesse two tries to get his seat-belt on.</p>
<p>Expecting of the sound of keys and ignition, Jesse looked up when he heard the glove box opening. He couldn’t even muster up a flush to his face when Gus extracted a little travel pack of Kleenex and plucked out a single tissue, handing it to Jesse.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” he croaked out again, wiping at his face and trying to get rid of the tears and the snot.</p>
<p>Gus didn’t say a word as he replaced the package, thank god.</p>
<p>Bunching up the used tissue in his fist, Jesse thought they’d start driving now.</p>
<p>But instead of closing the glove box, Gus reached into his pockets, one hand into his pants pocket and the other into the coat pocket.</p>
<p>The first hand pulled out some kind of little recorder-speaker thing…while the other pulled out a familiar device, the wire twisted in Gus’ fingers: a bug.</p>
<p>Jesse’s breath stalled out in his chest, heart rate skyrocketing as he realized:</p>
<p>“You…y-you were listening to us? The whole time?”</p>
<p>Blood drained from his head and chilled to ice in his veins as he stared at the bug in the dim glow of the streetlight.</p>
<p>Gus smiled that bland fried chicken joint smile. Jesse tilted away from him when he moved forward to place both devices into the glove box, too, only now closing it up.</p>
<p>He remained there, hunched pathetically into the door, as Gus twisted the key and started the car, scanning the empty, late-night suburban street before peeling away from the curb.</p>
<p>“Relax,” Gus said, with another congenial smile that Jesse knew better to trust. “I already knew you two were plotting to kill me. I only didn’t know how. Though in retrospect, I should’ve expected that a chemist would use poison.”</p>
<p>Jesse kept shuddering in the corner, but the longer Gus said no more, the more light-headed he felt.</p>
<p>A dozen blocks away from the Whites’ home, he whispered, “You’re not a chemist.”</p>
<p>“Hm?”</p>
<p>Breathing in through his dry mouth, Jesse tried again. “You used poison, but you’re not a chemist, either.”</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Gus agreed. He seemed to think over something, glancing sidelong at Jesse before focusing on the road again. “But the man I avenged was.”</p>
<p>“The man you…wait, what?” Jesse asked, confusion leaking into the terror.</p>
<p>He didn’t stop shaking, but at least he filled his seat again.</p>
<p>“I had many practical, strategic reasons for striking such a devastating blow to the Cartel,” Gus proceeded. “But I won’t deny my original motive was personal, and one which you’re familiar with: revenge.”</p>
<p>Jesse turned in his seat to get a better look at Gus.</p>
<p>As if seeing him more would clear up anything with the man.</p>
<p>“I retaliated against you and Walt for killing my dealers because you struck at them yourself, when I should’ve been the one you started with,” Gus carried on. “I cannot tolerate rogue actors, dissent, and disobedience. Not in my ranks.” He took a deep breath, and gave Jesse another smile that reassured him — which then sickened him for how much it reassured him, knowing what he did about Gus. “But that initial desire? Blood for blood? I don’t blame you for that at all. After all, I did the same.”</p>
<p>Taking a deep breath, Jesse tried to get his voice, lungs, and heart all back under control. It took several tries, and a crap ton of the breathing tricks he learned in rehab.</p>
<p>God, he wanted a hit so bad, right now. A hit, a drink, a smoke-</p>
<p>He didn’t dare pull out his cigarettes so soon after claiming to have flushed the poison away.</p>
<p>“So you were avenging…who?” Jesse asked. “A best friend, too?”</p>
<p>Gus’ small smile looked <i>amused</i> of all things.</p>
<p>“Something like that.”</p>
<p>Which didn’t answer him at all, but Jesse wasn’t sure if he wanted to know more.</p>
<p>“That was quite generous of you,” Gus added. “Offering to pay Walt out of your own pocket.”</p>
<p>Jesse shrugged, refocusing on the road ahead. Residential houses melted into business buildings as they made their way across the city.</p>
<p>“I really do owe him a lot,” Jesse muttered at Gus’ dashboard. “And it really is my fault he had to…leave you.”</p>
<p>“I meant what I said in there,” Gus retorted. “Yes, you made mistakes, terrible ones that cost people their lives. But Walt made them first, putting you — and eventually me — in those positions in the first place. And…I made some mistakes, as well.”</p>
<p>For almost two city-blocks, they sat in silence, punctuated only by the occasional beeping-dings as Gus indicated his turns.</p>
<p>Then Gus asked, “Jesse?”</p>
<p>He sounded surprisingly hesitant.</p>
<p>“Did Walt really do nothing when your friend died? I can’t imagine you dealt with it better than Gale’s death.”</p>
<p><i>Gale’s murder,</i> Jesse wanted to correct.</p>
<p>But he didn’t.</p>
<p>“I, uh…I mean. I only started the heroin after Combo’s death. And Mr. White got me into rehab.”</p>
<p>Gus hummed in thought.</p>
<p>“What do you think happened at Gray Matter?”</p>
<p>“…huh?”</p>
<p>Shooting a quick look at Jesse before taking a gradual left, Gus reiterated, “Walt spoke of a company he founded with some friends. That…’personal matter’ as he put it. ‘Something happened between them’, yet he wouldn’t go into detail.”</p>
<p>Jesse doubted that Gus expected a real answer; this question was rhetorical. Still, he didn’t comment when Jesse didn’t respond.</p>
<p>Gus didn’t speculate on shit idly, and he only asked this out loud for Jesse’s benefit, not his own.</p>
<p>But he did have a point, now that Jesse thought about it.</p>
<p>For Mr. Walt to just…speed right past that part of his little story — <i>something</i> had to have happened, and something that must’ve been his fault. So much his fault that he couldn’t even find a way to rephrase it or minimize it, he just had to skip past it entirely.</p>
<p>Not that it had to matter. Jesse had gotten one of his best friends killed, then a love of his life, and then a <i>kid</i> — and all of this before murdering the nicest dude to ever enter the meth business.</p>
<p>Whatever Mr. White had done at Gray Matter, it paled in comparison to Jesse’s own fuck-ups.</p>
<p>He stared at the stop lights, street lamps, and flashing signs that passed them by. He scrunched up the tissue in his left hand, draping the right one over the car door and trying to wrap his head around all the verbal bombs Gus and Mr. White dropped on him tonight.</p>
<p>He’d never get over how they could twist Jesse’s world inside out so effortlessly.</p>
<p>“He’s not gonna take it, is he?” Jesse mumbled.</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>“Mr. White?” Jesse tapped his fingers against the handle of the car door. “I mean, I’m sure he’ll take the money, but…he’s not gonna get out? Take our deal and be done with it all?”</p>
<p>“You heard him in person, Jesse,” Gus answered. “It’s not about the money, anymore. It stopped being about the money quite a while back, though I don’t pretend to understand when.” The man took a deep breath. “I regret not seeing this sooner, but in some ways, he’s as much of an addict as our customers. Only instead of drugs, he wants power. Power, praise, and prestige. And you, of all people, know the difference between a recovering addict…and a junkie.”</p>
<p>Jesse’s eyes burned, and he brought the scrunched up ball of a tissue to his face again, though at least this time he kept the tears in.</p>
<p>Because he <i>did</i> know.</p>
<p>“He’s gonna get his family hurt or get himself killed, isn’t he?”</p>
<p>“…perhaps, he will surprise you, as you have pleasantly proven me wrong.”</p>
<p>Nice of Gus as it was, neither of them believed it.</p>
<p>Gus didn’t say anything more as Jesse wiped at his face.</p>
<p>The rest of the drive passed by in comfortable quiet. As the lump in his throat faded along with Mr. White’s biting last words, Jesse started to doze off.</p>
<p>He shouldn’t. After Tomás, after slitting Victor’s throat, after all those bodies started dropping by Don Eladio’s pool, Jesse shouldn’t feel so comfortable in Gus’ presence.</p>
<p>But he did.</p>
<p>When a hand shook his shoulder, Jesse groaned out of a half-sleep and saw his house. He looked up to see Gus giving him another amused smile.</p>
<p>“Good night,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, most likely in mid-afternoon.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, sure,” Jesse answered sheepishly, undoing the seat belt and opening the door in one awkward movement. “See you…”</p>
<p>One foot planted on the curb, Jesse paused, then looked back at Gus.</p>
<p>“Wait…I’m not cooking tomorrow. Why would we see each other?”</p>
<p>“Assuming Walt keeps up his part of this act, I expect to be asked down to the DEA office…and I want you there.”</p>
<p>Jesse’s fingers tightened around the edge of the car door. “W-why?”</p>
<p>“To see how you handle yourself in that environment…” Here, Gus’ smile sharpened. “And to remind George what kind of legal battle hangs over their heads.”</p>
<p>Head bobbing in something approaching an absent nod, Jesse stumbled out of the Volvo. He eased the door shut and stepped back to watch as Gus drove away, not moving until Gus’ car vanished around the corner.</p>
<p>Then he bolted: across his lawn, through the door, and into the bathroom.</p>
<p>Standing over his toilet, Jesse pulled out his smokes, then the fake cigarette, ripping it up over the porcelain bowl to get at the vial of ricing.</p>
<p>He uncapped it, careful to keep it tilted away from his hand…</p>
<p>…then held it there.</p>
<p>Open, but unpoured.</p>
<p>Gus, Mr. White, even Mike; everyone always screwed him around and upside down, without ever seeming to think too hard on it.</p>
<p>And what did Jesse have against them?</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>His heart pounded and his breaths came in shorter and shorter gasps, but Jesse managed to keep his hands steady as he righted the vial and re-capped it.</p>
<p><i>Almost</i> nothing, now.</p>
<p>It wasn’t much…but it was something, and it was <i>his</i>.</p>
<p>He just needed to find a safe spot to hide it.</p>
<p>And standing in the doorway to his living room, he knew the perfect place for it.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~</p>
</div><p>“Gomie!” Hank greeted with a grin. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a flight to Texas by now?”</p>
<p>The small smile Hank got in return wavered.</p>
<p>
  <i>Shit.</i>
</p>
<p>“Merkert delayed my flight for this meeting,” Gomie answered, voice as stiff as Hank’s cane. Still, his hug warmed Hank as always. Despite the misgivings already fluttering in his stomach, Hank embraced him without reservation</p>
<p>“So,” Hank started, as he ‘led’ Gomie to the elevator. “What’s this about?”</p>
<p>Gomie stayed silent as they watched the floor indicator count down.</p>
<p>“…Gomie?”</p>
<p>His best friend and former partner took a deep breath as the elevator doors opened. Gomie held out an arm against the sliding doors to hold them back as Hank hobbled inside, and he only stepped in once Hank had a firm grip on the railing.</p>
<p>“Your, uh, brother-in-law,” Gomie finally answered, after the elevator doors ensconced them from the lobby. “You’re freaking him out.”</p>
<p>“<i>Walt?</i>” Hank asked. “He gets freaked out by his own shadow.”</p>
<p>“Which I’m guessing is why he crashed his car when he realized he was chauffeuring you to an illegal investigation of Fring’s laundry.”</p>
<p>Hank’s breath stalled between his lungs.</p>
<p>The elevator carried them the rest of the way to their floor in silence.</p>
<p>While law enforcement never kept regular hours or days, even the DEA skewed in that direction, so the half-empty office didn’t surprise him.</p>
<p>But the way the few agents inside gave Hank nothing more than quiet waves or greeting nods sure did, even before they turned away from him. Everyone had something to focus on, ranging from crime scene photos to paper work. Carrying a stack of printer paper somewhere, Janice gave Hank a thin, tight smile, but hurried past without a word.</p>
<p>The floor full of agents hadn’t been this quiet around him since the day he’d had to walk through it after beating up Pinkman.</p>
<p>Hank already wanted to pivot around, get back on the elevator, and go home.</p>
<p>But he didn’t.</p>
<p>He followed Gomie through the quiet bullpen, past ASAC Merkert’s office, and all the way to the conference room.</p>
<p>The internal windows into the conference room were clear of the blinds, giving Hank a clear view of who awaited him as he and Gomie approached. Every new face in there sent his gut plummeting further and further.</p>
<p>Merkert, mouth set in a grim line.</p>
<p>Internal affairs investigator Carlisle, as inscrutable as the day he’d taken photographs of Hank’s busted knuckles.</p>
<p>Gus Fring, straight-backed and face set in the unfriendliest expression Hank had ever seen on him.</p>
<p>…and weirdest of all, <i>Jesse fucking Pinkman</i>.</p>
<p>Out of all those faces, the one Hank had last seen under his own fists stopped him in his tracks, just outside the doorway.</p>
<p>A worn leather jacket replaced the oversized hoodie, over blue shirt bearing nothing but some tribal turtle graphic. He'd buzzed his hair short, though that also must've been a while ago, as it was growing back in. The kid must’ve gotten into a scuffle with someone else because Hank could see a faint trace of bruising on the kid’s cheek, right where Hank had broken skin during their own fight.</p>
<p>Hank stared, but no matter how much he blinked, the sight of Pinkman sitting next to Fring didn’t make any more sense.</p>
<p>“What is going <i>on</i>?” he murmured.</p>
<p>Instead of answering, Gomie said from behind him, “I’ll go if you want me to, but Carlisle is letting me stick around.”</p>
<p>“In case they cause trouble?”</p>
<p>“In case <i>you</i> do.”</p>
<p>Of the four men waiting in the room, Pinkman caught sight of Hank first.</p>
<p>The kid froze in his seat, elbows locking straight. The other three men looked at him, then followed his panicked gaze to Hank and Gomie in the doorway.</p>
<p>“Agent Schrader,” the OPR agent welcomed, waving them in. “Please, have a seat.”</p>
<p>Keeping a wary eye on Pinkman — and trying <i>not</i> to keep an eye on Fring’s hand on Pinkman’s shoulder — Hank responded, “Sure thing, Agent Carlisle. But, uh, care to tell me what this is all about?”</p>
<p>“Your illicit investigation into myself,” Fring answered. “And your harassment of Jesse Pinkman.”</p>
<p>Halfway across the linoleum floor to his chair, Hank paused at the icy bite in Fring’s voice. Gomie must have heard it too, but he didn’t react, just rotated the rolling office chair outward. As Gomie held the chair in place for him, Hank let out all his breathe to drop into his seat with only a pained grunt, instead of the shriek it felt like.</p>
<p>Across from him, Fring squeezed Pinkman’s shoulder, then clapsed his hands on the table in front of him as he faced Hank.</p>
<p>“Ordinarily, I favor politeness,” Fring stated. “But that requires more patience than I currently have left. To be quite blunt, I don’t believe it a coincidence that your car crash happened less than a block away from my laundry business. Especially so soon after your questions for me, and my recent employment of the victim of your brutality case.”</p>
<p>“Wait.” Hank shook his head, unsure if he heard right. “Pinkman <i>works</i> for you?”</p>
<p>Merkert, Carlisle, and Gomie all frowned in surprise, while Pinkman’s face scrunched up in confusion. Fring’s expression remained unchanged.</p>
<p>“I, uh…didn’t know that.” Hank took a deep breathe, steeling himself, and rotated in his chair to face Pinkman. “And for what it’s worth, I am truly, sincerely sorry for…what happened to you.”</p>
<p>“You mean what you <i>did to me</i>?”</p>
<p>Hank opened his mouth to say something trite about Pinkman not deserving it…</p>
<p>…then closed his mouth.</p>
<p>It’s not like any of them would care.</p>
<p>(And anyway, Pinkman <i>did</i> deserve it.)</p>
<p>“You say you didn’t know,” Fring said. “But I hope you understand why the circumstances make that difficult for me to believe.”</p>
<p>Hank narrowed his eyes. “Are you calling me a liar?”</p>
<p>“I’m saying I don’t believe you.”</p>
<p>Slippery bastard.</p>
<p>“Then I’m sure you understand why I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence that you two know each other,” Hank said, avoiding both Merkert and Gomie’s gazes. “Given I’ve looked into you both.”</p>
<p>“That’s ‘cause it isn’t,” Pinkman shot back.</p>
<p>Fring almost <i>smirked </i>at Hank. “In a way, you brought us together.”</p>
<p>“…How, exactly, did <i>I</i> bring you two together?”</p>
<p>Pinkman rolled his eyes, but when he opened his mouth, Fring caught his eye and shook his head once. The kid shut his mouth again as his apparently-boss answered.</p>
<p>“While you were in the hospital after your assault….when I brought some free meals for your family and everyone waiting for you?” At the implied accusation of ingratitude in Fring’s voice, Hank fought down a cringe and forced himself to remain upright. “Your brother-in-law expressed some concerns about a potential lawsuit from a former student of his.”</p>
<p>The smile Fring gave to everyone around the table — except Hank — made his skin crawl.</p>
<p>“In particular, he worried about your medical bills should such a lawsuit devastated your finances … a lawsuit which he expected you to lose.”</p>
<p>Fring looked back at Hank.</p>
<p>“So, I found and spoke to Jesse. I had several positions for which I sought new employees. So long as he stayed sober, arrived on time, and did his job, I would have no compunctions hiring him. But of course, as an underwriter for the Fun Run, supporting the DEA while also employing someone embroiled in a law enforcement brutality case against one your top agents would be…poor optics, to say the least.”</p>
<p>By the end of his explanation, Hank wanted to curl up in bed with his wife and his minerals and never come out again.</p>
<p>“You gave Pinkman a job…to keep him from suing me?”</p>
<p>Fring’s smile tightened as he inclined his head once.</p>
<p>“I…appreciate that,” Hank said. Feeling Merkert, Gomie, and Carlisle’s gazes burning holes in his bald head, he added, “Thank you. Really.”</p>
<p>Fring didn’t seem much more inclined to accept Hank’s thanks than Pinkman had his apology.</p>
<p>“I just don’t know how necessary that was,” Hank continued. He could see Gomie facepalm out of the corner of his eye. “Given that Pinkman already dropped the charges before my attack.”</p>
<p>Fring turned to Pinkman, content to let the kid answer, this time.</p>
<p>The (former?) drug dealer stiffened as everyone at the table focused on him, but at an encouraging nod from Fring, he sat up straight and explained himself.</p>
<p>“You were a cop, and I’m an ex-junkie with a rap sheet. I talked to my lawyer about it…” Pinkman shrugged. “We didn’t know if it would be worth it. All the evidence might’ve been on my side, but all the history was on yours, and I could still lose, pretty bad too.” Then Pinkman took a deep breath. “Or, y’know. So I thought.”</p>
<p>Hank stared between Jesse, and the stack of folders and papers on the table — one which he now recognized.</p>
<p>The file for their brutality case.</p>
<p>Somewhere between all the photographs of Pink’s face and Hank’s own busted up knuckles lurked the transcript of Hank’s statement about that night.</p>
<p>Though that night wasn’t the <i>only</i> thing in his statement.</p>
<p>“Did you drop the charges because you thought you would lose against me,” Hank asked slowly. “Or because you didn’t want to explain in a court of law how, exactly, I got a convenient crank call about my wife while I waited for the warrant on your RV?”</p>
<p>Gomie frowned, looking between Hank and Pinkman. Hank’s bullshit might piss him off, but he must have realized that Hank still had at least a sliver of a solid point: they still had no explanation for that well-timed fake dispatch call.</p>
<p>Pinkman opened his mouth to say something, but Fring reached out to press a stalling finger on Pinkman’s elbow.</p>
<p>“Setting aside the very long history in America of investigative agents planting evidence when it suited them,” Fring started.</p>
<p>“Hold on a second, Gus,” Merkert cut in. Everyone twisted in their seats to look down the long table at Merkert. “You and Mr. Pinkman have very good reasons to be upset, but I am not going to sit here and let you accuse my agents of corruption.”</p>
<p>Fring pursed his lips.</p>
<p>“I can respect that,” Fring conceded. “I am not attempting to accuse Agent Schrader in particular. Rather, I believe Jesse had good reason to afraid of arrest, despite his innocence. I certainly would, and you and I have had dinner together.”</p>
<p>Wait, <i>what</i>?</p>
<p>Hank knew their friendship spanned years. He’d sought to get as much evidence as possible before making any real accusations to go with his gut feeling because of it.</p>
<p>But he’d never even <i>met</i> Fring until Merkert introduced them, this year.</p>
<p>“Regardless of whether Jesse had truly done anything to merit a search of his vehicle, or had anything to do with that fake call…” Fring turned a sharp look back at Hank. “Neither of those would warrant your assaulting him <i>at all</i>…let alone so severely as to hospitalize him.”</p>
<p>Pinkman hunched inward at that.</p>
<p>“That’s true,” Hank admitted. “Which is why I turned myself in. I know I went too far in my investigation.”</p>
<p>He could see Merkert start to sigh in relief. Hank started a mental counter of all the apologies he’d need to give his ASAC after his meeting ended.</p>
<p>“But just because an investigating agent screws up…” Merkert stiffened, relief fading away like blood soaking into sand. “…Doesn’t mean the investigation itself ends. And I still have questions about Pinkman’s RV.”</p>
<p>“Agent Schrader,” Carlisle warned. “You are on thin ice as it is.”</p>
<p>“I <i>know</i>!” Hank snapped — then stopped, keeping himself rooted in his seat. “I know,” he repeated. “But if I was onto something, I don’t exactly what to let a criminal get away because of my mistake.”</p>
<p><i>Now</i> Fring looked pissed. Hands clasped tight into a single fist in front of him, his glasses almost glinted under the silvery florescent lights as he tilted his head back, eyes tight and jaw tense.</p>
<p>“Hank,” Gomie said, shaking his head in the corner of Hank’s peripheral vision.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Gomie,” Hank apologized, before facing Pinkman. “But given Pinkman drove around in a stolen vehicle-”</p>
<p>“<i>What?!</i>” Pinkman cried out in protest. His palm slammed down on the table, arms and shoulders tense. Fring’s hand shot up again, wrapping around Pinkman’s shoulder in a tight grip that kept Pinkman in his seat. “Screw you, Schrader, I didn’t steal shit! I bought it offa Combo fair and square!”</p>
<p>Fring actually pulled Pinkman’s upper body back until he rested against the back of his chair again.</p>
<p>“Who’s Combo?” Merkert asked, even as Carlisle opened one of the files from the stack spread across the table, flipping through some pages.</p>
<p>“My friend,” Pinkman said, voice tight. “He…he’s dead now. But I bought his RV almost a year ago, months before he died.”</p>
<p>“Christian Ortega?” Carlisle clarified, reading one of Hank’s reports; the photocopy of the last known registration for that RV peeked out from underneath it.</p>
<p>Pinkman scowled. “He hated that name.” His fingers curled into tight fists on the table. “Yeah. Christian Ortega…‘C’ and ‘O’…Combo. He was my friend. It’s not like I kept it hush-hush when I wanted an RV, wanted to travel and shit. He said he had one and that he wasn’t using it.” Pinkman almost sneered at Hank. “I paid in cash, ‘cause friends don’t need receipts. It’s not like I wouldn’t have let him borrow it back if he needed it or something. But I didn’t <i>steal</i> it.”</p>
<p>“But <i>he</i> did,” Hank countered. “From his mother.”</p>
<p>“Man, <i>fuck you!</i>” Pinkman shouted.</p>
<p>“Jesse!” Fring snapped.</p>
<p>Was Hank the only one who noticed the little circles Fring rubbed into Pinkman’s shoulder with his thumb?</p>
<p>Pinkman took several deep breaths before snarling, “Combo’s <i>dead</i> and you’re sitting here insulting him?”</p>
<p>Fring looked back and forth between Hank and Pinkman, then said, “I am…admittedly at a loss as to who or what you are all talking about.”</p>
<p>“Christian Ortega dealt drugs,” Hank summarized. This time, Pinkman knew better than to try lying about it. “He was shot dead a few months ago, with distribution amounts of crystal meth on his person. Gang dispute, most likely.”</p>
<p>“…I dunno nothing ‘bout that,” Pinkman choked out.</p>
<p>“Of course you didn’t,” Hank drawled. “But that RV of, uh, ‘yours’…last registration of it expired a year prior. When I went to talk to the official owner of it, she said it had been stolen. She never reported the theft because she didn’t want to press charges against her own son.”</p>
<p>Pinkman shut his eyes, jaw tensing and hands shaking on the table.</p>
<p>“Then perhaps, he can extend some apologies to Mrs. Ortega,” Fring cut in before Pinkman could say or do anything. “But this still does not explain your interest in it. Aren’t stolen vehicles the purview of the local police? And more importantly, it <i>also</i> does not justify your assault of him…nor does any of this explain your interest in myself. I already answered all your questions about Gale Boetticher.”</p>
<p>The white flourescent lights hummed overhead, as distant clouds coalesced outside. It wouldn’t rain, but sometimes the sky shone more gray than blue. Right now, it matched Hank’s mood.</p>
<p>Why the hell was Fring defending this kid so much?</p>
<p>More importantly, was Hank the only one wondering this?</p>
<p>“I traced some sales and movement of crystal meth,” Hank added to his explanation. “I followed some of it to a gas station, and at the time of sale, got a security camera footage of the RV. Camera didn’t catch the license plates…but it did let me see that the suspension seemed a little too high off the ground. And a rolling meth lab weighs a lot less than a fully-furnished RV interior.”</p>
<p>Fring’s inscrutable gaze flickered sideways toward Pinkman, but otherwise remained focused on Hank as his expression smoothed out, showing no emotion or reaction to the explanation.</p>
<p>“I don’t know nothing about meth at a gas station,” Pinkman insisted. “I’m off the meth. And my RV sat high ‘cause I tried to renovate it, but I sucked at it.” Crossing his arms, Pinkman sunk down in his seat. “I thought the reason Combo gave me a good price on it because of the smell.”</p>
<p>“Weed?” Hank guessed.</p>
<p>“Agent!” Carlisle hissed, and Hank quieted down. No leading the witness, fine.</p>
<p>Pinkman rolled his eyes but didn’t answer the question, instead returning to his explanation. “So I tore out more and more of it, but I couldn’t get rid of the funk. Nothing worked. Took out the fabrics, then like all the furniture-type shit, and then most of its plumbing or whatever. Still smelled like…” Pinkman’s gaze flickered to Hank before focusing on Merkert and Carlisle again. “Bad.”</p>
<p>“And then you just trashed it?” Hank asked, hiding none of his incredulity. “Scrapping it after all that trouble to renovate it?”</p>
<p>Pinkman lurched forward a little; not like he wanted to reach across the table for Hank, but like he needed to puke.</p>
<p>His hand still on the kid’s shoulder, Fring looked on in exaggerated concern — was Pinkman conning him or something? — while the rest of the men at the table waited in tense silence for Pinkman to explain himself.</p>
<p>When the kid looked up, his eyes and face <i>shone</i> in the silver light draping down from the florescent lights.</p>
<p>“I was gonna give the money to Mr. Margolis.”</p>
<p>…who?</p>
<p>That name sounded familiar, but Hank couldn’t place it — nor could anyone else. Hank didn’t recall anyone named Margolis in his investigation into either Pinkman or Fring. The only place he’d heard that name recently was-</p>
<p>“The air-traffic controller?” Gomie asked, sitting up.</p>
<p>“<i>Donald</i> Margolis?” Merkert added, face falling in recognition.</p>
<p>Pinkman slowly nodded, looking back down at his vague reflection in the dark pseudo-wood of the conference room table.</p>
<p>“H-his daughter, Jane…I was with her when he died,” he confessed, voice barely louder than the buzzing of the air conditioner and the florescent lights. “She only relapsed in the first place because of me. She…she choked to death right next to me, and I was too high to wake up and notice, let alone help her. I woke up next to her dead body.”</p>
<p>Pinkman hunched over himself, shrugging off Fring’s hand. His face fell from the office’s silvery light and into self-induced shadow.</p>
<p>“Everyone’s mad at her dad, but…but it’s <i>my</i> fault. I can’t…it’s not like I could bring Jane back from the dead or un-crash those planes. But I thought I could at least, I dunno, help him out somehow? <i>Someone</i> needed to give him a hand. And it didn’t sound like anyone else was gonna do it when they blamed him for all those people in the planes dying.”</p>
<p>Even Hank could hear the unshed tears in the kid’s voice.</p>
<p>“Jane and I were gonna leave Albuquerque.” Pinkman glanced around the table before tilted his head at the file in Carlisle’s hand, the one with Hank’s reports on the RV. “Get clean and get <i>out</i>. We just wanted to use up the last of the…the last of what we had. One last, big hurrah before we got sober and left town for good, y’know?”</p>
<p>He almost wanted to tear up for the kid.</p>
<p>Almost.</p>
<p>“But then she died. I…I ended up in rehab, eventually.” Pinkman looked back down, staring at the square of ceiling light shining on the table. “And then I got out, and I wasn’t really sure what to do, since all my plans were with Jane and she was dead. I heard all the stuff on the news people were saying about her dad, and I just…I was gonna try to help him or do <i>something</i> for him. But I was too late. Mr. Margolis killed himself, so if I wasn’t gonna go road-tripping with Jane or help out her dad…then what was the point?”</p>
<p>He looked up at Carlisle, before glancing between Merkert, Gomie, and Fring — everyone at the table except Hank. Then he looked at the file about the RV again.</p>
<p>“If I knew Combo took it from his mom without her permission, I would’ve, like…finished and given it back to her or something.”</p>
<p>That sounded true enough. Something stupid that a teary kid like this could do.</p>
<p>Except this entire monologue tickled at Hank’s brain in all the wrong ways.</p>
<p>This teary kid was a completely different person from the angry man he’d heard yelling at him from inside the high-riding RV.</p>
<p>And Pinkman <i>still</i> hadn’t answered for that fake crank call, nor did any of this explain why Fring would waste a weekend afternoon defending a random employee. Dozens of people who worked for him here in Albuquerque — forget the hundreds more across half a dozen states. Why did Fring care so much about <i>this</i> employee?</p>
<p>Besides, <i>someone</i> other than that lot-owner helped the kid out. How did some ex-junkie street dealer who’d scraped out of high school come up with ‘I will not be harassed in my private <i>domicile</i>’? Or know to challenge Hank’s chain of investigative custody after he pulled off the duct-tape over the bullet holes?</p>
<p>But looking around the table…Hank got the feeling that he could’ve laid all of this out and no one else at this table would care.</p>
<p>Hell, most of it <i>already</i> laid before them, the case file strewn across the dark, fake-wood surface of the table.</p>
<p>But no one else at this table had <i>been</i> there. Gomie had been following Hank for half his investigation, and Merkert had been at Pinkman’s house the night of Hank’s fight, but no one else here heard Pinkman’s voice at the scrap yard, saw the RV in person, or otherwise dealt with the kid prior to this meeting.</p>
<p>They only read Hank’s side of the story from his report, reading it off of dry paper. That paled in comparison to the sight and sound of Pinkman cringing right in front of them, holding down tears as he all but cried about his dead girlfriend.</p>
<p>Gomie gave Hank the same half-glare as the night of the bar fight. </p>
<p>Fring looked as surprised at Pinkman as the rest of them.</p>
<p>Huh.</p>
<p>If this was new information for him, what kind of sob story had Pinkman cooked up beforehand, to get Fring here in the first place?</p>
<p>“Gentlemen,” Fring said, hands falling under the table, but shoulders straightened back. “Whatever Jesse’s…past indiscretions…” Hank wanted to laugh at that, but held it in. “He is doing his best to improve himself, now.” Fring looked at Hank, cold ire almost making Hank want to back down. “I would ask you all to consider the DEA’s true goal: to capture as many drug-related criminals as possible, no matter the cost? Or to reduce the harm that drugs do to society? While they are usually met together, these goals are not the same, and in this instance, it appears they come into conflict with each other.”</p>
<p>Fring faced Merkert. “George…for whatever it may or may not be worth to you, sobriety is a condition of employment for all my employees. Jesse is no exception to that.”</p>
<p>Whatever sliver of a chance Hank might’ve still had after that “Gus” earlier, it died a quick death with this “George”.</p>
<p>“And while I sympathize with the…” Fring paused as he spoke to Hank again, deciding on his words before continuing. “Often volatile nature of piecing together one’s life after surviving tremendous violence, that does not mean I will to let anyone’s recovery from PTSD come at my expense.”</p>
<p>Pinkman lips pursed, cheeks lifting in a suppressed smile as he spoke to his boss.</p>
<p>“That’s what you think this is?” Pinkman asked Fring. He pointed at the center of the stack of files…from which Hank spotted a photograph peeking out. Hank only saw a corner, but that little corner of bruised skin could still make Hank’s gut clench in latent regret. “This happened <i>before</i> he got attacked by those gangsters.”</p>
<p>“But, to my understanding, <i>after</i> some very trying experiences down in El Paso,” Fring smoothed over, glancing at Merkert before focusing on Hank again — as if daring Hank to say something, to contradict him. “Given every rumor I’ve heard, that ten-thousand dollar reward for any information regarding your attack seems rather redundant, now. Perhaps it would be better spent on mental health counseling.”</p>
<p>Hank felt his mouth curl back. “Hey,” he started.</p>
<p>“Hank!” Merkert snapped, cutting him down. He looked back at Fring. “That’s very generous of you, Gus, but unnecessary. The department offers counseling.”</p>
<p>“Did he take it?” Fring countered.</p>
<p>Merkert pursed his lips. “I am not at liberty to disclose our agents’ health matters, or the to discuss department’s decisions with civilians.”</p>
<p>Whatever his intent, Merkert shouldn’t have bothered; that line answered enough for the entire table.</p>
<p>“Well then,” Fring answered after a tense minute of silence. “Since it will be in my best interests to keep my distance from next year’s Fun Run, consider the ten-thousand dollars an independent gift for the department. To improve your mental health resources and treatments for your agents.”</p>
<p>The room fell silent after Fring dropped that little bomb. Hank’s ears rang with the buzz of the flourescent lights, the humming of the air-conditioning, and the drone of distant cars drifting through the closed windows.</p>
<p>He didn’t know exactly how much money Fring contributed to the DEA and the Fun Run…but judging by the look on Merkert and Carlisle’s faces, it was far more than ten grand.</p>
<p>“Perhaps, in the future, this agency will be able to adequately care for its agents <i>before</i> their trauma manifests as harassment and harm befallen onto…‘civilians’,” Fring finished.</p>
<p>Seeing Merkert and Carlisle and Gomie’s expressions, Hank swallowed down his pride…along with his entire career, and everything he thought they stood for as an agency.</p>
<p>“I…apologize,” Hank said, looking between Pinkman and Fring. “For…for focusing on you two so hard. And I’ll back-off.”</p>
<p>He directed that to Merkert as much as to Pinkman and Fring.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Fring said, his smile polished and fake in equal measures as he rose out of his seat. Looking at Merkert, Fring asked, “If this will be all, George?”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Merkert said, leaning forward on the table as he got to his feet. “Thank <i>you</i> for meeting with me, and for not pressing any charges.”</p>
<p>The two shook hands in front of Pinkman as the also stood up.</p>
<p>Hank remained seated.</p>
<p>While he <i>could</i> get out of a chair on his own, now, it was always humiliating and never easy.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Fring said, the warmth in his smile and voice a little more genuine this time. He faltered a little as they release their grip on each other, looking between Pinkman and Hank. “But George…if anything <i>further</i> should happen…I don’t think I can keep standing between my employees and any justice they need to pursue.” Voice lowering to something mournful, he murmured, “Ya he sobrevivido un gobierno despótico. No aguantaré un otro más.”</p>
<p>Carlisle grimaced, but Merkert and Pinkman looked as lost as Hank felt.</p>
<p>Gomie, seeing their faces, translated, “I’ve already survived one despotic government. I won’t put up with another.”</p>
<p>Merkert and Hank winced in unison as the implied accusation hit them like a bomb.</p>
<p>Or like an IED strapped to the underside of a tortoise.</p>
<p>Hank never thought he’d miss El Paso.</p>
<p>Pinkman sniffled — unshed tears or falling off the wagon? — but also awkwardly held out his hand to Merkert. Thank god, Merkert only shook it once.</p>
<p>“I don’t…<i>want</i> a lawsuit,” Pinkman muttered, twisting his fingers in front of him. “It sounds like a pain in the ass. I’m sure you’re a nice guy and all, but I’d be happy if we never each other again, y’know?”</p>
<p>On Hank’s other side, Gomie snorted, and Merkert actually chuckled a little at that.</p>
<p><i>Merkert</i>, amused by a drug dealer.</p>
<p>“Believe me, kid, I don’t take offense to that at all.” He looked back at Fring. “Thank you, Gus, for everything. For all your years of support of the DEA, for not pressing charges, hell, for taking Pinkman to rehab and hiring him. That <i>is</i> the kind of great community work…we…hope for…”</p>
<p>Merkert trailed off as Fring shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t done that much, my friend. I only hired Pinkman, someone else brought him to rehab.” He turned to the kid. “Family, I assume?”</p>
<p>Pinkman glanced between Fring, Hank, and Merkert. He took a deep breath and said, “Uh…no.”</p>
<p>Fring’s eyebrows actually rose in surprise, yet he also seemed…irritated? Why would he-</p>
<p>“Mr. White did.”</p>
<p>Hank stared at Pinkman. He had to have heard that wrong.</p>
<p>“…my brother-in-law,” Hank said slowly. “Took <i>you</i>. To rehab. And you think he wouldn’t tell <i>me</i>?”</p>
<p>“I mean, I asked him not to tell <i>anyone</i>.” Pinkman scratched at his nose, as Fring…rubbed at the bridge of his nose, like he had a headache. Fed up with this overrun meeting, or something else altogether?</p>
<p>“How did you even know him?” Carlisle asked, sounding a step away from reviving OPR’s case against Hank.</p>
<p>Pinkman shrugged. “He, uh, was my teacher in high school.”</p>
<p>Leaning back in his chair, the handle of his cane digging into his shoulder where it hung over the back of his seat, Hank rolled his eyes. “My brother-in-law bought some weed off him after the cancer diagnosis.”</p>
<p>“Whoa, hey, <i>no</i>,” Pinkman protested. “I didn’t say nothing about selling drugs-”</p>
<p>“Relax, kid,” Gomie offered. “I know Hank might make it hard to believe, but the DEA doesn’t actually care about street-level weed dealers, let alone <i>ex-</i>dealers.”</p>
<p>“…Well, I’m still not gonna confirm or deny selling my old high school teacher any drugs,” Pinkman said. Then he drooped in place as he added, “But he busted me for some stupid shit a few times back when I was in high school. I guess he wanted to try some weed at lest once before he croaked, and came looking for me.”</p>
<p>Carlisle didn’t bother disguising his wry glare at Hank. Merkert caught Hank’s eye, but Fring and Pinkman drew his attention back a blink later.</p>
<p>“Why don’t I see you two gentlemen out?”</p>
<p>Looking around the table, then looking at Pinkman, Fring shook his head. “I appreciate that, George, but I think this once, we’ll see ourselves out. I have some business to attend to, and I’m sure Jesse has plans of his own. But I do look forward to seeing you again.” Here, Fring’s smile faltered with hesitance for the first time the entire day. “Perhaps for your wife’s birthday?”</p>
<p>Worse, <i>Merkert</i> looked relieved. “Of course you’re still invited. She’d kill me otherwise, she loves your grilled fish.”</p>
<p>“It’s all in the foil,” Gus shot back as he herded Pinkman to the door.</p>
<p><i>‘Foil?’</i> Pinkman mouthed in confusion, even as Merkert laughed at their inside joke and bid them farewell.</p>
<p>The latent levity vanished as soon as Merkert closed the door behind Fring and Pinkman, and focused on Hank.</p>
<p>It had been a long, long time since Hank felt <i>nervous</i> about talking with Merkert.</p>
<p>Now, that’s how he felt every time they saw each other.</p>
<p>On Hank’s left, Gomie sat in tense silent. In front of Hank, Carlisle appraised him with weary calculation.</p>
<p>Hank stayed silent as Merkert slowly stepped back to his seat. However, he didn’t sit back down. He wrapped his hands over the back of the black office chair, knuckles whitening with his tight grip. Despite his angry hands, his expression remained blank, neutral, and empty of opinion on Hank.</p>
<p>Absent of the professional affection leftover from his days as Hank’s mentor…and of the respect he had as Hank’s boss.</p>
<p>“Whether Gus goes through with his ten grand <i>or not…</i>” Merkert laid out every word like an injunction. “You will get counseling.”</p>
<p>Hank opened his mouth-</p>
<p>“This isn’t a suggestion,” Merkert pressed on. “Nor an offer; it’s an <i>order</i>. Gus’ former scholarship student making drugs doesn’t mean <i>he’s</i> a criminal or deserves harassment. Even if Pinkman did fake that call about your wife, somehow — and to be honest, Hank, I’m starting to think that’s a very big ‘if’ — he did not deserve that beating. You are very, <i>very</i> lucky that Gus is an old friend of mine.”</p>
<p>The heavy lumps in Hank’s throat and gut grew with every word. Still, he wasn’t a young, ex-junkie punk. He had no interest in selling anyone on crocodile tears and pity, nor did he actually fail at keeping his emotions to himself.</p>
<p>“You ever think that befriending the head of the DEA might be the perfect strategy-”</p>
<p>“<i>Enough</i>, Hank!” Gomie snapped.</p>
<p>Hank jolted at his best friend’s outburst, twisting his seat to face him.</p>
<p>Gomie took a deep breath, before reaching out, draping a hand over Hank’s arm not unlike Fring and Pinkman.</p>
<p>“You’ve had a rough year, rougher than any of us ever signed up for when we took this job. I know I sure as hell expected to arrest dealers like the one Pinkman used to be, not worrying about assassins and IEDs. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”</p>
<p>Carlisle started restacking all the files and folders from Hank’s entire case in silence, while Merkert didn’t even try to pretend to give them a shred of privacy.</p>
<p>“My wife almost demanded I reject the promotion to El Paso,” Gomie pressed on. “She’s so scared of what happened to you, happening to me too. And the only reason she didn’t is because you barely survived another attack right here in Albuquerque. You’ve been through hell, Hank. Every day, I’m so glad you survived, and I admire you for doing your damnedest to get back up on that horse and keep going.”</p>
<p>“Me too, Hank,” Merkert offered. Hank looked at Merkert over his shoulder. The man had that same soft, regretful look on his face as that night on Pinkman’s lawn. “God knows, I never worried about exploding turtles or honest-to-god ax murderers. I’ve dealt with some nasty shit, but I never had to try to figure out how to bag a <i>head</i>, or save a fellow agent after they lost their legs. All of this, on top of your family’s issues…you’ve gone through more in the last year, alone, than some agents do in their entire <i>careers</i>.”</p>
<p>Then to Hank’s surprise, <i>Carlisle</i> cut in with, “And you were one of our best agents even before all this shit came your way.”</p>
<p>Merkert inclined his head at Carlisle in agreement, before looking back at Hank.</p>
<p>“We all saw that you recover so well physically, we forgot to account for mental recovery, too,” Merkert continued. “But I’m not going to ignore it anymore. Your recovery period is extended-”</p>
<p>“I don’t need that!” Hank protested.</p>
<p>Merkert’s pity morphed back into anger.</p>
<p>“Clearly, <i>you do</i>,” Merkert said. “You heard Gus. No doubt he’s survived some nasty shit, too, fleeing Chile and Mexico when he did. In a way, you’re lucky that he did, that he knows a thing or two about trauma and doesn’t hold it against you as much as he could.”</p>
<p>Carlisle stood up, all his internal investigation files neatly under his arm. Merkert took a deep breath, letting it out in a frustrated rush.</p>
<p>“We won’t cut you loose, Agent Schrader,” Carlisle promised. “You’ll be suspended, but with at least partial pay. We’ll determine how long exactly after you’ve met with a counselor and we’ve spoken with HR on the matter. Consider that more time to work on your recovery, physical <i>and</i> mental.”</p>
<p>Under the table, Hank clenched his hands into tight fists, pressing them together with his thighs as he nodded his acknowledgment at the OPR agent.</p>
<p>The man bid goodbye to all three of them — formal with Hank, cordial with Gomie and Merkert — and strode out the door, no doubt on his way to write up his report of this meeting for the higher-ups.</p>
<p>God, how had Hank crashed so hard, so fast?</p>
<p>“Hank.”</p>
<p>He turned his head back to Merkert, fighting down the strong urge to curl into a ball under the table. As if he could get down there without agony, anyway.</p>
<p>“Remember when I suggested you might have a guardian angel looking out for you?”</p>
<p>Hank bobbed his head twice in answer. How could he forget? He’d been thinking about that even as he lay half-dead in the parking lot. Did the one-minute warning call mean he’d had some higher power looking out for him? Or did the fact that he was attacked at all in the first place mean he hadn’t?</p>
<p>Merkert shook his head. “Well, we know who it is, now. If you’d actually shown up at Gus’ laundry business or trespassed on his property in this ‘investigation’ of yours…you owe your brother-in-law some thanks.”</p>
<p>“I should thank him for adding onto my problems?” Hank asked, gesturing towards the scrapes he’d gotten from the crash. “As if I didn’t have enough medical bills already?”</p>
<p>Merkert stared down at the blurry shape of himself in the surface of the dark wood table.</p>
<p>“You should thank him for coming and telling <i>me</i> about your entire illicit investigation,” Merkert finally pronounced. “It’s why OPR doesn’t know that you’d <i>already</i> broken the law by bugging Gus’ car.”</p>
<p>“You <i>what</i>?!” Gomie yelled.</p>
<p>Hank winced. “I, uh…look, I used my own money and-”</p>
<p>“That’s not the <i>point</i>, Hank, and you damn well know it!”</p>
<p>When Merkert’s hand slapped down on the table, Hank flinched, half expecting the table to crack in half under that redirected rage.</p>
<p>“Your brother-in-law went along with your Hardy Boys routine despite knowing full well how illegal it was!” Merkert hissed. “He hoped you’d find nothing and back down, but instead you escalated. He couldn’t stop you from breaking the law, but he stopped you from breaking the law so spectacularly that Gus would’ve known about it. And now <i>I’ve</i> broken regulation by not reporting this to OPR, and broken my own moral code by not telling Gus just how far you went. Do not make me regret it, Hank.”</p>
<p>Hank’s chest ached. Was this what Walt felt like this with his lung cancer? If he felt even a fraction of this much pain every day, Hank didn’t know how the man even got out of bed in the morning.</p>
<p>“I…understand, ASAC.”</p>
<p>“Good. Now go home. Thank your brother-in-law for saving your ass, spend some time with your wife, and remember what you are <i>really</i> here for.”</p>
<p>Despite the hand still pressed down on the table, Merkert’s face softened.</p>
<p>“We’re rooting for you, Hank,” he promised. “And I still want to see you <i>back</i> in my department. I just want you here at your best. I don’t…I don’t think less of you for getting help with your mental health. I’m only disappointed it took all of <i>this</i> to make you get some help in the first place.”</p>
<p>Hank kept his gaze fixed on the spaces between Merkert’s hand on the table. not saying another thing. What <i>could</i> he even say, in the face of all this?</p>
<p>Hank felt it deep in his gut and his bones, Fring and Pinkman were involved in the meth trade somehow.</p>
<p>But then, didn’t all the crazies of the world think <i>they</i> were right, too?</p>
<p>Was he <i>one of them</i> now?</p>
<p>Merkert came around the table, patting Hank’s other shoulder opposite from Gomie. The conference room rewound by a decade and a half, back to when Hank shadowed Merkert to learn about the job.</p>
<p>“Get better,” Merkert ordered. “Get home, get better, then get your ass back in here, okay?”</p>
<p>Hank fought down the irrational desire to shrug off his boss and former mentor’s hand. “I will.”</p>
<p>Without another word, Merkert followed Carlisle’s path out of the conference room.</p>
<p>After at least a minute of nothing but florescent buzzing and air-conditioner humming, Gomie finally pushed his chair out and stood, holding out an arm to help Hank out of his seat, too.</p>
<p>Despite how much he didn’t want to, Hank took it.</p>
<p>“What about you?” he asked, keeping his voice low as he made his weary way to his feet, reaching out with his free hand for his cane. “You regret keeping your mouth shut about me putting my gun away before my bar fight?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Hank didn’t know why that made him freeze. After all, he already knew the answer.</p>
<p>“But not because of…” Gomie didn’t even finish, just waved towards the now-empty conference table looming beside them. “But because if they suspended you sooner, you might not have assaulted Pinkman, lost your gun, and been left defenseless when two cartel assassins came after you. Because if I’d spoken up back then, the last few months wouldn’t have beat you up so bad, and you wouldn’t be in this mess.”</p>
<p>Hank let out a long, weary breath as he leaned onto his cane.</p>
<p>“Well…I guess I’ll invite Walt and his family over to dinner, soon, and thank him in person.”</p>
<p>Gomie gave Hank an encouraging nod, relief naked on his face. “That’s good, Hank, that’s…really good.”</p>
<p>Hank tried his best to smirk at his best friend.</p>
<p>“I hope you get bored to death in El Paso.”</p>
<p>Gomie laughed, eyes wet but face dry. “I hope so, too.”</p>
<p>Despite Fring and Pinkman getting away with whatever they were doing, despite Merkert sidelining Hank on the bench, and despite watching his career take blow after crumbling blow for a solid half hour — god, had it really only been half an hour since they walked in? — Gomie’s hug still warmed and strengthened Hank as it always had, and he didn’t care if the entire bullpen watched him lean into the embrace.</p>
<p>It’s not like they were going to be seeing much of him for the next few months, anyway.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm aware Breaking Bad is old enough to effectively predate Tumblr-centric fandom. If you know of any active LiveJournal or DreamWidth communities that still have followers or accept self-promos or recs, please let me know.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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